The battle between AT&T and Google is getting hotter, as the telecommunications giant sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission Wednesday, calling for tighter regulations of the search juggernaut’s Google Voice service.
If you haven’t been keeping up, let us bring you up to speed. Back during the summer, Apple told Google that it couldn’t play with its favorite toy in the whole wide world, the iPhone. Mommy FCC stepped in and asked what was going on. Apple said Google was trying to break its favorite toy. Google cried that Apple wouldn’t let it play with its toy, and AT&T played innocent. Then for some reason, AT&T called Google a doo-doo head, which Google denied. Apple turns around and says it doesn’t want to be friends with Google anymore. Mommy FCC decides that maybe it should keep an eye on Google.
Now AT&T is saying that not only is Google a doo-doo head, but Mommy FCC should check it for cooties as well. That is, the FCC should take a closer look at Google Voice, which it is already investigating.
In the letter (PDF), AT&T counters Google’s claim that Voice only blocks phone sex operators and free conference calling services.
“In fact, Google is blocking calls to, among others, an ambulance service, church, bank, law firm, automobile dealer, day spa, orchard, health clinic, tax preparation service, community center, eye doctor, tribal community college, school, residential consumers, a convent of Benedictine nuns, and the campaign office of a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives,” the letter said.
Wow, that’s a lot of stuff. AT&T later goes on to say that phone networks should be as neutral as Google and the FCC want the internet to be. Which is odd, since phone networks have never been terribly neutral. Case in point, have you ever been charged extra to access a Japanese web site?
The FCC seems to agree. The Washington Post’s Cecilia Kang said that an anonymous FCC source said the inquiry into Google Voice will not consider net neutrality rules, but rather just old-fashioned telecommunications rules.
Oddly enough, AT&T maintains in the letter that it is against net neutrality.