TELECOMMUNICATIONS RELAY SERVICE METHOD AND APPARATUS

In a telecommunications relay system employing automated text-to-speech for conversion of a text message entered by a sound impaired person, the delay between the completion of the automated text-to-speech conversion and the assignment of a live shared attendant for transcribing and transmitting that which the unimpaired person says is eliminated by completing the text-to-speech conversion for each text message and its associated end-of-message code word without the introduction of any delay and, immediately thereafter, accepting and storing the unimpaired person's speech into a voice buffer at least until a live attendant is assigned to the relay session. When an attendant is eventually assigned to the call, the attendant retrieves the speech stored in the buffer. Should the assigned live attendant transcribe all of the speech that was stored in the buffer, which may include speech after the attendant's assignment to the call, the live attendant may be linked to the unimpaired party to continue the speech to text transcription such that the buffer introduces essentially no delay in the transmission of the speech to the live attendant.