Update February 2006

Vodafone Spain and the State Confederation for the Deaf (Confederación Estatal de Personas Sordas - CNSE) have presented the first Blackberry Accessible product.

The two companies have subscribed a collaboration agreement to jointly develop mobile solutions that foster access to mobile telephone communications for people with a hearing disability.

With this shared initiative, they have presented the first product from the Blackberry Accessible range, which serves to underline the principle of "Mobile Access for All". The aim of Vodafone Spain is to help more vulnerable groups to lead fuller lives through the services it provides and through the co-operative relations it holds with people and entities around us, designing products that favour people with special needs.

Among the principle objectives of its Corporate Social Responsibility, Vodafone Spain develops high-performance mobile products and solutions, especially adapted to the needs of vulnerable groups, to enable people suffering from a disability to become better adapted to the medium we live in and to help enrich and enhance their communication processes.

The first product from this range offers:

• A text device that will allow to communicate very easily by sms and e-mail from any location.
• A pricing plan specially designed for this collective, so that deaf people would never have to pay above the average rate because of their disability.
• Blackberry Messenger: A specially designed application for people with a hearing disability. It allows messages to be exchanged between various users simultaneously in real time, using the BlackBerry device's highly intuitive Qwerty keypad. Furthermore, the application incorporates an alert mode for an incoming message, which is based on the device vibrating, specifically designed for this special needs group. This application will allow to communicate with each other, giving rise to a community effect.