
AT&T Goes After Google Voice - AndrewWarner
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/25/att-goes-after-google-voice-net-neutrality-and-double-standards-full-letter-to-fcc/
======
tc
Live by the sword, die by the sword.

This is the danger of increasing regulation; the blade cuts both ways. You may
think that Net Neutrality is about taking on big companies, but I guarantee
that in just a few short years their smart legal teams will be using the
regulation to increase each other's legal bills and to squash smaller
competitors [1].

[1] Regulation is similar in this regard to patents. The defense of patents is
always the hypothetical small inventor. In practice, though, the beneficiary
always seems to be huge corporations (except for patent trolls, which are a
fairly recent innovation).

~~~
borism
what makes you think patent trolls are recent innovation? I think they're as
old as patent office.

------
brianobush
interesting, but google voice is not a phone network connection alone. It is a
bundled service with a web front-end. How would net neutrality be applicable
in this case?

------
jeroen
Google: "Unlike traditional carriers, Google Voice is a free, Web-based
software application, and so not subject to common carrier laws."

I don't get how price or underlying technology figure in this. Almost all of
the end-users won't see the difference between one system for making
phonecalls and another, and I'm sure the rules are meant to protect exactly
those people.

~~~
jrockway
How long until it's illegal to write an open source application unless it is
accessible to blind disabled veterans?

If something is completely free, it should not have to follow as many rules as
paid services that are built upon government infrastructure.

~~~
alain94040
Sorry but your logic is flawed. Free or not, your app should obey the law.

One good reason for that is that sometimes corporations will give away stuff
and make money some other way. It would be bad(TM) if that allowed them to
work around laws they don't like.

~~~
jrockway
The alternative is the software not existing at all. Is not existing better
than existing in a not-entirely-functional form?

------
padmanabhan01
Why block? why not just tell the user he is calling an expensive line and
charge him more for it?

~~~
andreyf
Because that would be a clear violation of he principle of carrier neutrality
- the point of it is that anyone can connect to anyone at one price.

~~~
stumm
Stupid question: how do long distance charges fit into "connect to anyone at
one price"?

~~~
andreyf
You can charge differently based on how far the data travels, but not whom it
travels between. Hence, the weird "kickbacks" for sex hotlines. If I dial
1-900-SEX-TALK, the long distance carrier can't demand a cut of the
$2.99/minute I'll pay for that call.

------
daeken
This is the type of thing that bothers me about mandated net/carrier
neutrality. It's all well and good in theory, but in practice it ends up
restricting innovation and limits freedom. If people didn't like what Google
Voice brought to the table, they simply wouldn't use it. All you get when you
regulate something like this is yet another way to bludgeon the competition
into submission.

------
mbrubeck
I really hoped this headline meant that Google Voice had prompted AT&T to
offer a similar useful service to its customers. But no, it just means that
both players are lobbying congress for regulation favoring their particular
business models.

------
paul9290
Overall as AT&T states Google maybe breaking the fourth rule, but who cares I
want innovation, free SMS, voice transcriptions read via email, ability to
regulate who rings my phone vs. who goes to voicemail, web interface and etc,
etc, etc...

Maybe it was AT&T all along blocking the iPhone app, as the executives
probably have used Google VOice or use it and know it's a killer app. Well for
me it is.

