AT&T, Google trade barbs over Google Voice while FCC listens in
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Sep 25th 2009 5:33PM
posted Sep 25th 2009 5:33PM
It is pretty interesting that Google wants a free, open internet with the left hand while it's blocking certain telephone calls with the other, but Mountain View wasted no time in responding to the communication, posting an quick blog piece where it says there are "many significant differences" that should exempt it from common carrier legislation (some sound reasonable, though the argument that "Google Voice is currently invitation-only, serving a limited number of users" makes us think they're digging pretty deep to come up with reasons they shouldn't have to pony up the cash to get these calls connected).
If there's a bright side to the bickering, it's that both AT&T and Google can agree on one thing: rural carriers' continued ability to charge high connection fees hurts everyone -- it's a "badly flawed" system, in Google's words, and it'd be great if the FCC would do something about it. Whether this whole spat ultimately influenced the outcome of the Google Voice iPhone app debacle is unclear, but it's obvious that AT&T's been stewing about this for a while -- so let it all out, guys, mommy FCC's here for you, and one way or another we suspect GV's going to have to end up going legit if it wants to grow its user base by any significant measure. Check out the gallery for AT&T's letter and follow the read link for Google's shorter, slightly less aggressive response.
I love it.
Fuck you At&t. Google FTW!!
Fuck Google, and fuck AT&T.
They are both evil, as are Comcast, Cox, Verizon, etc.
I'd agree with that comment. AT&T is pure evil. I like how they negotiated with Google in the early days for implementing peer-routing (aka parallel peering) so that both parties could save money by not haven to go through 3rd party networks, but then AT&T had the nerve to try to charge extra for its customers to access their own partner's resources. And why? Because AT&T wants to be Google and get that ad revenue, too.
Ma Bell is a b!tch. And an evil one at that.
This is going to get ugly.
AT&T is involved already. I'm British and I even know that first line is bullshit.
Let the show begin!
I'd actually say google has a point with the whole invitation only thing. It basically means that those with a google voice number are essentially beta testers and illustrates that it's not a fully and released system. Blocking parts that would cost the company a lot of money in a closed beta like they basically have makes perfect sense. I'm not sure how well that'd hold up since I can't find anywhere that it officially says it's a beta but it certainly has the structure of one.
Yes and no
The FCC involvemet came from Google wanting to "invite" every iPhone user to GV. That's more of a general release than an invite.
I never saw the app though, maybe you had to be invited seperate to downloading the app -shrug-
Ummm no. Just because you have the app installed doesn't mean you can use Google Voice. You need an account. And AFAIK that is currently in a highly limited form.
@ Cy
Even if it was released to every iPhone user, that still is a relatively small number of people when you look at the fact that its ONLY an iPhone. You don't have all of AT&T's other phones, nor do you have any other carrier, and that's completely forgetting land line phones.
But, lets forget all that for a second, if I release a beta, I'm not making any promises to you as a user. I'm telling you "I have this product, come try it out and see if I have any problems with it. It isn't fully working yet, but enough of it is where I can allow some people access, and it won't he a huge problem."
If I have a product that I know isn't fully realized yet, I'm not going to sink crap tons of money in it before it is fully ready.
Wow... People just want to talk to each other, does it really have to be this complex.
Yes.
It's the Tower of Babel all over again...
Do not trust anything from AT&T. Let's destroy their PR campaign which they created to make a fake image of themselves.
"AT&T has long supported both the goal of an open, vibrant Internet and the four principles contained in the Commission's 'Internet Policy Statement.'"
LOL!1one. So why do they block residential servers? Why block port 80 if you believe in an open an unfettered Internet? Is charging your customers more for the privilege of having unmolested ports what you consider to be inline with the FCC's four principles for a neutral and open Internet?
The FCC has had those four principles since 2005. They're just guidelines, and they're not enough. We need net neutrality legislation, such as H.R. 3458. Call your congressperson.
Now I'm not going to say I understand net neutrality in its entirety, but from what I understand it is basically saying no matter what it is you're viewing, data is data, correct?
Now if that is the case, why does AT&T charge more to tether laptops to smartphones, or why do they charge smartphones more for data plans?
scuse my ignorance, but what's the big deal with Google Voice? Serious question, I don't really get it. Is it just a VOIP?
Google voice is a system of connecting phones -- if someone calls your GV number, google calls you on whatever phone you have set up to ring at that time and connects you. It's not VOIP, it's a computer system connecting calls for you.
Not voip. you make and receive calls with your existing phones. one number can ring multiple phones. free sms. USA only.
One number for all your calls and SMS
Call screening - Announce and screen callers
Listen in - Listen before taking a call
Block calls - Keep unwanted callers at bay
SMS - Send, receive, and store SMS
Place calls - Call free within the continental US and to Canada
Taking calls - Answer on any of your phones
Phone routing - Phones ring based on who calls
Forwarding phones - Add phones and decide which ring
Voicemail transcripts - Read what your voicemail says
Listen to voicemail - Check online or from your phone
Notifications - Receive voicemails via email or SMS
Personalize greeting - Vary greetings by caller
Share voicemail - Forward or download voicemails
Google: "Google Voice is currently invitation-only, serving a limited number of users"
If I were Apple, I would have REJECTED Google Voice and this would be the reason why.
I've been totally on the fence on this one until this story. I don't have an iPhone or AT&T service on my personal phone but if it is considered BETA software and limited availability then it very rightfully deserves to be rejected from the app store. There are something like 16 million iPhone users out there and if you are going to offer it to all of them in the app store it needs to be a fully supported and finished application.
Seems to me Google wants the protection of saying its in limited BETA testing on one hand and then saying our fully functional application should be in the store on the other.
Dear AT&T,
I cancelled your land line and DSL service because I find I can use my old-fashioned, highly tetherable, unlimited data, WM cellphone and Google Voice to provide me with far better communications options.
As I obviously wasn't alone in my decision, you are now attempting to limit these options. Should you be successful, I would rather use two tin cans and a string than anything AT&T could ever offer me.
Kindly shove your "open, vibrant internet" up your ass, along with the fruit phone people from Cupertino, who's idea this probably was originally.
Sincerely,
Tommy Udo
AT&T dearly misses you.
But... but... Google Voice is free...
Yes, Google Voice is Free!!! And, I have Google Voice. Voice is merely one more type of data and all data transfer over all networks should cost exactly the same.
Meanwhile I have 2 google voice apps for free on my Palm Pre!
What exactly is wrong with blocking high price networks when you can provide the same service for less? As a consumer that sounds like a good thing to me.
And frankly if I don't like it I simply wouldn't use my Google Voice account to make the call in the first place.
Evil Vs Don't be Evil.
Fight!
I have the Google Voice app on my iPod touch.
How? I'll never tell! ;)
lol its quite easy to get GV on the iphone, i have it on my 3gs
Fuck everybody. Trust no one.
No I trust companies until they start showing the habit of being asshats. Google in my book is at strike one with this cease-and-desist crap. Everything else people have been complaining about when it comes to Google is based on nothing since they have no history of acting like MS. If that changes....then lets talk. Apple on the other hand. ATT, etc. I trust them as far as I can throw Apple's HQ.
Again, why is Google even "helping" At&t?
Google doesn't charge Google voice users at least for now.
They are not customers, they are beta testers.
The letter did nothing but exposed the fact that AT&T has been threatened by the potential profit lose due to Google voice.
And yes, AT&T expects that Apple is going to approve the app in the near future in order to save its face.
Typical razzle dazzle bullshit. ATT is trying to make a lot of noise over here, to distract from what they and Apple have been doing over there. Google isn't a carrier so they don't have to play by the same rules...yet.
That and Google Voice is still in a STUPIDLY LIMITED BETA right now. I signed up in June. Nothing as of yet. ATT can't say shit about this for now.
Now lets get back to the topic at hand....why was the app denied? Apple? ATT?
Odd...I signed up around the same time as you (don't remember exactly when. I know I did it the weekend the whole iPhone/GV fiasco hit the fan) and I got my email about a month afterward.
FWIW, I don't use it at all.
Google Voice can't make calls to certain numbers? Am I missing something? That's the first I've heard of this, and it seems like that would be pretty big news. I don't seen anything about this on Google.
Maybe because there are so few users on Google Voice. again I've been waiting since June to get a Google Voice account. The damn thing is currently invite only by Google.
Presumably the folks that came up with Grand Central (GV's earlier iteration) already did the due diligence and have the legal footing in place in case one of the TelCo's decided to fight anyone stealing thier cheese.
If not, shame on Google's legal department for buying damaged goods.
Apple and AT&T are pretty clearly in the wrong here. Pissing off a company like Google is not a good idea. Giving them motivation to partner with a rival company like MS is not a smart move, and with all the devices, software, etc. they have recently or will soon be releasing, there's surely plenty of opportunity there. I
This thing is very simple. After you give them your SSN, and sign up for two years paying avg 100 bucks/month they do everything in their power to stall the innovation. If it was up to AT&T we would still be hanging from the trees and at the most be using rotary phones. And with all this negative press soon At&t will stand for nothing else than high blood pressure. The only thing they are good at is charging and doing the bare minimum.
It's completely unfair for Google to avoid obvious scams. They should be required to be duped just like AT&T is.
These are the natural growing pains of evolving and colliding markets. Toes get stepped on, laws get rewritten, people lose their jobs and ultimately the consumer is rewarded with better products and services. This happened during the automation push of the 9th and 20th century and the (popular) advent of the modern computer in business and industry. Only in those times machines and computers were cutting jobs, and creating a higher class of worker more technically minded. So to say that Google, AT&T or any other corporation is "evil" is ridiculous. They aren't ACORN for cryin out loud!
This is capitalism baby, this free and open market of ours is the reason why you, or anyone else in the world gets to have all this amazing tech and product. Saying you hate these companies and slapping them in the face all the while sucking on the their teats for consumer nourishment is asinine. The only reason we are sitting in front of our computers, surfing the web and pissing and moaning about these little things is because these companies came up with the means for to do so!
Google isn't perfect, and I question their privacy and sniffing policies, but they in particular have been a friend to consumers / end users offering so many free services that most people cannot even count them! They are NOT business friendly, they ARE consumer friendly. Offering the little people FREE stuff, while charging corporations big bucks for many of the same services.
AT&T is old school, and most carriers are hanging on for dear life to old, tired models that are no longer relevant in this era. They need a reset, but it will not come without a lot of pain and screaming. So hang in there, we are in the middle of a new revolution and in a few more years we will see a whole new ballgame when it comes to communicating and gaining access to information.
You tell them, Kobioshi baby, you tell them...
AT&T, for all it's "old school" conservatism, was the first carrier globally to actually agree to relinquish control over content and handset functionality traditionally held in an iron grip by all carriers, and by so doing has ushered in by domino-effect a new era of smartphone evolution with new paradigms like App Stores and location-based social networking etc.
That takes some foresight and willingness to take chances on an unknown future, and should be acknowledged.
This all opens up a window of opportunity for the Googles of the world to step in and move things along, but it's understandable that the carriers don't want things to move too fast, too disruptively to their current model, at least not until they've figured out their place in the next era and how to move as painlessly as possible towards it while staying relevant.
Yep, a lot of pain and screaming ahead, and these exchanges are probably only whispers, sweet talk compared to what's to come.
But it will end up with a lot of smiles all round for the consumer, for the greater good. Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best man win...
Or, as has continually been proposed and implemented, we will see a raft of legislation which throws government regulation out the window, destroys the concept of privacy and actively works to kill the very concept of net neutrality.
Do you think it's any accident that the US ranks 28th in the world in terms of internet connect speeds? Do you think it's any accident, that at the rate of current speed improvements in the US that it will still take 15 years to catch up to South Korea's current speeds?
"According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, for every $5 billion invested in broadband infrastructure to create these networks, 97,500 new jobs in the telecommunications, computer and IT sectors will be created."
http://www.opposingviews.com/articles/opinion-internet-speed-in-u-s-way-slower-than-rest-of-world
Don't talk to me about the so-called "free and open market" of capitalism in America. You've obviously been asleep at the wheel over the last decade or so.
Its clearly not an good move by AT&T
Admit nothing, deny everything, make counter accusations.
Wait just a billion dollars AT&T, Google isn't on the same playing field because Google doesn't take billions of dollars from taxpayers to roll out services they never bothered rolling out. And when the FCC asks about fiber to the curb and why nobody has it, they don't ask for billions more because they spent that money elsewhere. Google gets to do what it likes, you don't... If you don't like it, stop taking our money without providing us with services against our will.
Wow, AT&T finds ways to make me hate them more every day. Its like an art form.
I say we go ahead and sue AT&T for blocking free service I only this as act of monopoly. I personally think Internet should be free. Oh wait a min. Internet is free. Then I am I paying for 3G data fee? I thought I'm paying for 3g service already. Oh let's together sue tmo vzw and AT&T for charging us data fees. Free the Internet.
Why google has to hear such a faul comment for offer consumer free service? I don't think it's matter of competition bcoz they charging something that should have been free from first place. I think we paying them minimum monthly fee is more of expenses than what they need and deserve.
Google voice help me to use exclusively released iPhone where there's no AT&T coverage using wifi or something. Free google. Free the voice service. Free Internet.
ATT might have a case IF google was selling phone service. But if they were smart enough to understand google voice, they would realize that a) GV is free, and b) it is not a service that replaces local phone service. Yes, GV let's you make cheap international calls, but google is not charging people to make phone calls anywhere in the US, so they don't really have any responsibility to connect every call everybody wants.
Regardless of what Apple, google, and ATT say, this episode pretty much shows that ATT is afraid of GV, and they definitely don't want it running on their iphones. But there's little they can do to stop this, as they are too incompetent to recognize the real issues and do something about it. It's ironic, their management's understanding of technology is about as deep as John Sculley's, the former CEO of Apple who almost destroyed the company, because he greatly overestimated his knowledge of technology (he didn't believe Microsoft could deliver a GUI-based OS). ATT doesn't understand google, they don't understand the limitations of wireless broadband, they don't understand that people hate them and often only use their service because they have a virtual monopoly, and it is this ignorance that will eventually doom them, at which point we can all say good riddance.
"If there's a bright side to the bickering, it's that both AT&T and Google can agree on one thing: rural carriers' continued ability to charge high connection fees hurts everyone"
Oh heck no... we can't have those small companies that don't have the pricing advantages that the big guys have making prices that allow them to stay in business... if they are lucky... oh heck no. ATT and others will make sure that legislation will be passed to those terrible people that made a huge investment of time and money and are now just trying to survive in the world of ATT... no, no... we will pass law saying those companies should be charging less so thay can lose money and then be bought up by our good loving and benevolent friends at ATT... we know we can trust them with our money... just like we can trust our government with our lives.
Small businesses are un-american and we should do away with them
Hail hail... drink the kool-aid!