The deaf community is finding it easier to communicate with business and government agencies thanks to one Salt Lake company.

NXi Communications Inc., located at 4505 S. Wasatch Blvd., essentially offers an instant messaging service for the deaf.

"If you're a deaf person trying to contact somebody in state government or calling American Express to check on your credit card, you have some real barriers," said Glen Lowry, senior vice president of sales and marketing. "According to federal law, these people all have to provide equal access."

The company's software allows users to answer deaf calls placed through a telecommunications device for the deaf (TTY). Calls from the deaf ring directly to a person's PC, allowing real-time communication.

"If you're a big enough company, you need us," Lowry said. "Instead of having these TTYs all over their offices, all they've got is one of our systems, and when somebody calls, it rings on somebody's desk and pops up in a window."

The company was co-founded by Tom McLaughlin and Ron Nelson, who is deaf.

Several state governments have adopted NXi Communications' product, including Illinois and Maine.

Lowry said about 38 states use the software in some fashion. Another 87 local government agencies have adopted the service.

Todd Frisch, telecom specialist for the city of Calgary, Canada, said that after an exhaustive search, NXi's technology appeared ahead of the competition. Calgary has been using the system for five years.

Frisch said about 150 city personnel carry the software on their desktops. Calls can be instantly transferred to specific city departments, ringing on one computer or 10 computers simultaneously.

If a TTY call goes unanswered, the deaf caller will see a script that informs the caller the person is not available, offering an option for the caller to leave a TTY mail message.

"It could easily go to desktops wherever we needed it to be," Frisch said. "For a municipality, we were one of the first in Canada to implement this type of technology that NXi offers."

At the low-end, the software costs about $200. On the high side, state governments or big companies can expect to pay a lot more.

The company just placed a bid for a state government contract at $400,000.

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E-mail: danderton@desnews.com