AT&T Says Google Voice Violates Net Neutrality Principles
This issue highlights the challenges at the Internet converges with telecommunications - AT&T is challenging that Google is becoming a telco.
AT&T Says Google Voice Violates Net Neutrality Principles
AT&T is playing a “gotcha” with Google. The big phone company filed a letter with the Federal Communications Commission Friday saying the Google Voice calling system violates the commission’s network neutrality principles.
At issue is Google’s decision not to connect Google Voice customers to certain conference calling and other lines because of what it says are excessive access charges by the providers of those lines. AT&T, which is required to connect its telephones to all lines, says Google is discriminating against certain uses of its network, a no-no in the network neutrality world.
Whether AT&T is right depends on all sorts of technical interpretations of the commission’s policies and which regulations actually apply to Google Voice, which is a technological patchwork of telephone calling and Internet communication.
Read more at bits.blogs.nytimes.com
