AT&T Accuses Google of Violating Net Neutrality & Telecom Law

AT&T Accuses Google of Violating Net Neutrality & Telecom Law

This Google Voice game is becoming dirtier every day. Latest (WSJ reports): AT&T has sent a letter to FCC asking them to investigate Google Voice because it apparently violates net neutrality principals. How? Google Voice blocks telephone calls in certain rural communities. These are essentially the calls that have to be transferred to very high paying carriers that operate in that area. Now, here the problem is AT&T and other carriers were banned from such kinda of call blocking in 2007. AT&T has some obvious reason to be angry: Google Voice is after all its competitor so the same rules should apply! It is also quite obvious that Verizon and other telecom players will also back this but they might shy away from coming out publically (why would they get dirt when some ones is already doing that for them?). The interesting point here is just a few days back AT&T and Verizon showed concern about regulations for wireless (but were fine with the same regulations on wired network!). But yeah one thing is clear- FCC will now need to draw a clear line between telecom and internet-telephony because yes.. they are not same.

Update : Google has responded to this in their public service blog. More updates coming soon..