Forum Moderators: open
Dallas-based AT&T says that Google would have an unfair advantage if Google's Voice service is not subject to the rules applied to phone operators.On Wednesday, a group of 20 Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, mostly representing rural areas, wrote a letter to the Federal Communications Commission to investigate the Internet company's ability to block calls.
"We are formally requesting an investigation by the FCC into the nature and function of Google Inc's voice service," they wrote in the letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.
An FCC spokeswoman on Thursday declined to comment. The FCC has already sought information from Google, Apple and AT&T, the biggest U.S. telephone carrier.
The reason we restrict calls to certain local phone carriers' numbers is simple. Not only do they charge exorbitant termination rates for calls, but they also partner with adult sex chat lines and "free" conference calling centers to drive high volumes of traffic. This practice has been called "access stimulation" or "traffic pumping" (clearly by someone with a sense of humor). Google Voice is a free application and we want to keep it that way for all our users -- which we could not afford to do if we paid these ludicrously high charges.
