AT&T Blasts Google In New FCC Letter
[Updated 5:05 p.m.] AT&T asked the FCC on Friday to force Google to play by the same rules as its competitors on the heels of reports that the Internet giant blocked calls to rural areas for users of its Google Voice service and, as a result, is reducing its access expenses. The letter from AT&T Senior Vice President Robert Quinn points out that a June 2007 FCC decision prohibits other providers, including those with which Google Voice competes, from taking such action. Google has argued Google Voice isn't a traditional phone service and shouldn't be regulated like other common carriers.
Quinn issued a statement saying that Google is "openly flaunting the call blocking prohibition that applies to its competitors" and is acting in a manner inconsistent with the spirit, if not the letter, of the FCC's fourth principle of its Internet policy statement. That principle calls for fair competition among providers of networks, applications, services and content. He added that it is ironic that Google is "flouting the so-called 'fifth principle of non-discrimination' for which Google has so fervently advocated."
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski appeared at the Brookings Institution on Monday to outline a multipronged strategy for expanding the agency's "network neutrality" guidelines and strengthening their enforcement. "While Google argues for others to be bound by net neutrality rules, it argues against itself being bound by common carriage," Quinn said. Google officials had not had a chance to review the AT&T letter and could not comment. Google posted a reply to AT&T's letter on its blog saying that the telecom company "is trying to make this about Google's support for an open Internet, but the comparison just doesn't fly."
Free Press Research Director Derek Turner defended Google, arguing in a statement that AT&T's letter is a red herring and "a political stunt to distract attention from the important work the FCC has begun on network neutrality." But U.S. Telecom Association President Walter McCormick sided with AT&T. "The hubris of Google's 'do as I say, not as I do' approach to public policy would be laughable if it were not so serious," he said.
"In offering voice service, and then engaging in call blocking - effectively assuming the power to decide who its customer can call and what content they can access - the nation's number one promoter of increased broadband regulation has arrogated to itself freedom from existing telecommunications regulation, a personal exemption from the FCC's internet principles, and a pass on the public interest in competitive parity," McCormick said.
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