Sorenson to open communications relay center in Price

Sorenson Communications announced today that it will open a new communications relay center in Price, bringing 50 jobs to a temporary site in an operation that will have 100 employees by summer in a permanent location.

The relay service, called Sorenson IP Relay, is designed to facilitate communication between people who can hear with those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, by using PCs or mobile devices.

The SIPRelay call center will be in the former Utah Division of Wildlife space in Price. The permanent facility will be a leased, 9,500-square-foot building at 600 W. 200 South.

Through SIPRelay, a deaf or hard-of-hearing person uses a PC or mobile device to send a text message to a call center. An assistant there then calls a hearing individual and reads the message to them. The hearing person replies verbally, and the assistant relays the response back to the deaf or hard-of-hearing person through a text message.

Salt Lake City-based Sorenson Communications provides several services and products, including the Sorenson Video Relay Service, a video interpreting service; Sorenson videophones; the SIPRelay; and Sorenson Video Remote Interpreting, a fee-based remote interpreting service.

Sorenson has about 300 employees at its only current SIPRelay center, which is in Salt Lake City. The company began five years ago with 35 employees, all in Utah. It now has about 3,500, including more than 500 in Utah.

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E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com