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AT&T Goes After Google Voice
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- brianobush 17y agointeresting, 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 17y agoGoogle: "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 17y agoHow 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 17y agoSorry 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 17y agoThe alternative is the software not existing at all. Is not existing better than existing in a not-entirely-functional form?
- jhancock 17y agoThere is a difference between providing "free software" and operating a "free service".
- jeroen 17y agoFair point. However, I feel the question "should they be subject to the same regulation as .." has the same answer as "are they competing with .." In this case that answer probably depends on who you ask.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- padmanabhan01 17y agoWhy block? why not just tell the user he is calling an expensive line and charge him more for it?
- andreyf 17y agoBecause 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 17y agoStupid question: how do long distance charges fit into "connect to anyone at one price"?
- andreyf 17y agoYou 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.
- padmanabhan01 17y agoWell, if different networks can charge different amounts for access, why not charge different amounts for different networks based on what they charge?
- tc 17y agoCarriers want to sell "unlimited" LD plans. Customers like unlimited LD plans. And for most of the US, LD is cheap enough that you can make that work. The model breaks down a bit if you have to start subsidizing your customers' calls to sex lines in quantity.
- paul9290 17y agoOverall 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.
- tc 17y agoLive 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 17y agowhat makes you think patent trolls are recent innovation? I think they're as old as patent office.
- daeken 17y agoThis 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 17y agoI 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.