I answered the phone yesterday in the evening, and heard someone on the other side “This is the relay service from i711.com; you have someone who wants to reach you. Would you like to proceed?” It sounded like someone reading from a paper, though it sounded interesting. I asked “Someone wants to reach me? What’s i711?”

The person said “This is how it i711.com works; someone connects through our web site with the people they want to talk, and they type the messages, and we, the operators in between, tell the messages to you, and you respond by talking, and we type those responses to those people, which is basically referred to as being a relay call. Would you like to accept this relay call?” I said “Does it tell you whose on the other line?” The person didn’t know, so I went ahead with the “relay” call. The operator told me to hold on, and I started holding on; one minute, two minutes, 5 minutes, and still no answer on the other side. I hung up after a while and went online to see what this relay call was all about.

I went to the site i711.com itself to see if there was such a thing, and interestingly enough, there was. It’s a very cool service [if it works, and I have never tried it yet], and could surely improve communication for anyone who feels the need for having special access to using the web to interact with others, or to even interact with someone over the phone. You need to know the phone number of the person you wish to relay your calls to, of course. I don’t know if the operator would him/herself act as a “translator”, or if a machine would convert the two different inputs, though the latter sounds more practical [and affordable for the company itself]. I wonder who the person, who wanted to talk to me using this method, was. If that person is reading this message and you wish to “relay call” me, use that service again. I know you already have my phone number, so you can call me directly also if you wish. If you wish to “relay calls” between us again, this time I will hold on even longer. Maybe next time you can include your name in your initial initiation message, so that the operator can let me [or any "receiver"] know who’s “relaying.”