Then why can't Google's mere "bidirectional phone call forwarding" include the disputed rural endpoints?
I assure you the dollar costs of complying with the regulation (paying the rural phone services), and thus the prices at which competing services can be profitable, are the only "real issue" here. Neither Google nor AT&T are charities. Everything they do -- even when writing whiny letters to the FCC (which both are guilty of) -- is motivated by profits.
Google Voice doesn't compete with AT&T any more than a VOIP provider that you use via your DSL or cable internet competes with your ISP. They provide different services, and the one you are arguing competes with the telephone carrier or ISP actually relies on the customer paying a telephone carrier or ISP.
I don't think we should ask: "Why can't Google's mere 'bidirectional phone call forwarding' include the disputed rural endpoints?", but rather "Why should a call forwarding service be held to the same network neutrality constraints issues as an actual phone provider?". When you make a call with Google Voice, Google doesn't transmit your voice over the internet or over telephone wires or via microwaves. Your phone provider does that. Regardless of whether it would be better for GV to allow you to call those rural areas(which of course, it would be), we should not expand the jurisdiction of the FCC to include services that are not actual communication networks of any kind.
When you make a call with Google Voice, Google doesn't transmit your voice over the internet or over telephone wires or via microwaves. Your phone provider does that.
If true, why are certain numbers blocked, and the right to block numbers at Google's discretion asserted in the GV terms-of-service? Those calls are not being routed over your existing phone provider, or else Google wouldn't care about the destination.
And why shouldn't a "forwarding" service -- one that includes a new dialable endpoint number, SMS, conferencing, free long-distance, and more -- meet the same regulatory standards as other competitive services offering a phone number/SMS/conferencing/bundled-long-distance/etc.?
If Google can route an inbound call to any of several numbers purchased from other providers (mobile/home/office), even switching mid-call, how are they doing that if their service does not travel over and depend on "actual communication networks of any kind"?
It's unseemly that Google argues from general principles of fairness when asking the FCC to make rules in new areas (as with network neutrality), but then splits semantic hairs to define their quacks-like-a-duck GV offering as an exempt "Web-based software application".
You make a lot of assumptions there. The only salient point is that Google does not run the network they just forward calls. If they decide they don't want to forward calls to certain numbers that is there perogative. It's a whole lot different than the people running the wires and networks cutting of portions of the network from access to their users. When AT&T disables access to those numbers No one with AT&T service can call those networks. The same is not true for GV. The reasons for AT&T's restrictions do not apply and arguably should not apply.
GV does far more than forward calls -- they offer a lot of the same value-added services AT&T charges for. And very importantly: GV includes a dialable number. People in (for example) those Iowa counties can call GV numbers, but those GV numbers can't return those calls. Maybe Google's Vint Cerf can explain how that asymmetry improves the End-to-End Connectivity of the phone and data networks involved?
If AT&T blocked dialing to those counties, AT&T customers would have to pay another long-distance provider more to complete their calls. Since Google blocks dialing those counties, GV customers have to... pay another long-distance provider more to complete those calls. Exactly equivalent, in practice.
Mr Mohr, GV has been only around for less than a year. Please give them some time to grow some legs and feet to stand on. Perhaps the limitation is not cost at this point, but the infrastructure. Again, they are still in private beta, meaning they are not claiming to be a legitimate service providing service to everyone, unlike A&T or Sprint or Verizon.
I've lived in a lot of different places in my life, and AT&T certainly does not provide DSL or a phone line in all of the United States.
I assure you the dollar costs of complying with the regulation (paying the rural phone services), and thus the prices at which competing services can be profitable, are the only "real issue" here. Neither Google nor AT&T are charities. Everything they do -- even when writing whiny letters to the FCC (which both are guilty of) -- is motivated by profits.