Oct 14
WWGD? Put the screws to rural America?
By Denise Ross
There’s a battle brewing between the telecom giant of yore and the tech giant of now, AT&T and Google, over little old us. AT&T is demanding that the FCC require Google to stop blocking some calls to rural telephone numbers on the relatively new Google Voice application.
Last Friday, the FCC launched an inquiry into Google Voice’s blocking of calls and began an review of whether the application should be regulated as a traditional telephone service, also known as a common carrier. Google has rejected such claims, saying in a blog posting that Google Voice is a Web application and not a telecom service.
That is from the Washington Post’s tech blog. Read it all here. AT&T claims that Google has blocked calls to an ambulance service, a community center and a tribal center. (Out here in the sticks, we are more expensive to connect up to the grid. Ergo, phone companies - including AT&T - have tried but failed to find ways around the rules that say they have to connect to the more expensive numbers.)
The FCC’s answer to the question of whether Google Voice is a telecom carrier or an Internet site might already be available in how the federal agency has structured its inquiry. It is investigating whether Google has violated telecom rules but has declined so far to do the same when it comes to net neutrality and other rules designed to make sure all Internet users can access the same websites and tools. I say, If it looks like duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck …
The outcome of this FCC inquiry will matter immensely to states like South Dakota. Should Google get a pass on this, it would probably be less than a decade before we Dakotans would be living parallel lives to our big city brethren, suffering a similar fate to those towns bypassed by the railroads or the interstate highways. There are a smattering of hollowed out buildings near Ellsworth Airforce Base that illustrate the importance of an on- and off-ramp.
Google’s apparent intentions to prevent some people from using its voice app raises the question of whether the company is violating its own mantra - Don’t be evil. What might not seem so terrible in Palo Alto must seem downright cruel and inhumane in Eagle Butte.
And, as a fan of Google fan and tech enthusiast Jeff Jarvis, I wonder where he is on this one? So far, radio silence.
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Interesting arguments in the comment section on the Google blog. I wonder, though: can they discern between regular rural service and the scammers Google claims they are trying to avoid? In the age of caller ID, can they not tell the difference between a call going to a rural hospital or a community center and an offshore sleaze running a sex chat?
The debate about whether a service like Google Voice is a telecom service or an information service is the “$64 BILLION question.”
In places like SD, we have higher access/termination rates because we have more miles of network per capita than an urban center, which needs less infrastructure (ie. fewer miles of fiber) and has more customers to pay for the cost of the network.
If Google Voice is deemed to be an information service, they will continue to use the networks of telecom companies that service SD for no charge, which is sort of like driving your car on our state highways without paying any gas tax or licensing fees.
I don’t quite understand why AT&T is complaining. If you or I call a rural number, it Google Voice is just an internet connection between us and the number.
I have not used Google Voice yet, but from what friends have said, it is really handy even if the voice to text feature is so flawed the results can be puzzling or strangely funny or worse.
Actually, talked about it on the “radio” - on This Week in Google’s podcast. Brief discussion last week; expect we’ll talk about it again.
Great to hear that, Jeff. Welcome to the Hoghouse and apologies for the ironic error. Still, would be lovely to see an expanded discussion of this on your blog. The ramifications - potential government regulation of the internets - could be huge. -Denise
Dusty will kick Google’s oversized butt!
Google Earth has a dark spot.