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AT&T Calls Google a Hypocrite On Net Neutrality
NotBornYesterday writes "AT&T is accusing Google of being a hypocrite when it comes to Net neutrality because it blocks certain phone calls on its Google Voice service. 'By openly flaunting the call-blocking prohibition that applies to its competitors, Google is acting in a manner inconsistent with the spirit, if not the letter, of the FCC's fourth principle contained in its Internet Policy Statement,' Robert Quinn, AT&T's senior vice president focusing on federal regulation, said in a statement. Google blocks certain calls to avoid high costs due to a practice known as traffic pumping. Rural carriers can charge connection fees that are about 100 times higher than the rates that large local phone companies can charge. In traffic pumping, they share this revenue with adult chat services, conference-calling centers, party lines, and others that are able to attract lots of incoming phone calls to their networks. Google responded by saying that the rules AT&T refers to don't apply to Google Voice for several reasons. Google Voice is a software application that offers a service on top of the existing telco infrastructure, it is a free service, and it is not intended to be a replacement for traditional telephone service. In fact, the service requires that users have a landline phone or a wireless phone."
...get shot by those who don't.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I am German, those extra expensive "service" numbers are usually 0900 numbers, is that the same system in the USA ?
And anyone can call AT&T a hypocrite not knowing when money involved companies lose comprehension of ethics and become evil somehow.
Google will just claim that it's still in beta.
Health Freedom is almost as popular as Freedom itself.
I see no problem.
Google is just protecting itself from unscrupulous end-line telcos.
One major difference between what Google's doing and what AT&;T would like to do: AT&T wants to block/limit something the user wants to do and that they are doing deliberately, when the blocking benefits AT&T and negatively affects the user. Google is blocking something the user doesn't know (before they get the bill, at least) would happen and didn't ask for, and the blocking benefits the user (by keeping them from being unwittingly charged a large sum of money) and not Google. The whole reason those rural numbers are used, after all, is specifically because they can charge high rates without it being apparent from the number that the charges are going to be any higher than normal. They're used to deceive callers into thinking the call's a regular one and not one that'll be charged at a premium rate. Blocking that deception is, IMO, just ever so slightly different from keeping a user from using a service they want to use.
Since when do telcos abide by the spirit of the law?
Looking first at broadband penetration, they want everyone to have broadband. At 4x the speed of a 56kbps modem. With download caps. And traffic shaping. Who's violating the spirit of the law?
Moving along to cell phone inter-operability. Although many telcos allow you to use outside phones on their networks, actually unlocking a phone is nearly impossible (with a few exceptions). Granted, they've subsidized your phone purchase. But you subsidize their paycheques.
Next topic: Phone number portability. It wasn't that long ago that you couldn't actually move your phone number when you left your portable phone company for another. So much for portability.
Finally... It's AT&T. They outsource (and violate the american dream!) and barely train their call centre employees. It is impossibly difficult to get out of a contract, even when they've violated the terms, and they charge for checking your voice mail and receiving text messages. Although they're legally allowed to do that, it violates the spirit of only paying for time that you use!
... also, they're owned by satan, but that's beside the point.
Hmm, I just realized. IIRC AT&T (like most phone companies) offers a premium-rate-call blocking service themselves. One that you have to pay for, if they're like the others I'm familiar with. Google's blocking makes it unnecessary to pay for AT&T's blocking. I suspect that's why AT&T's upset.
This is yet another instance where the conflation of infrastructure with service muddies the picture.
Netneutrality should really be about neutrality in the network (ie the infrastructure/series of tubes) service providers USE the series of tubs and ought to be able to come up with whatever usage scheme they want as long as people will buy it.
Instead, in the US, at least, the service provider owns the infrastructure as well and we end up in obtuse arguments like this one complaining that a network USER is in violation of rules/principles which should govern network PROVIDERS.
If phone companies were to use peering, like ISPs do, then this would be a neutrality issue. Since there's no peering, and this is a simple matter of avoiding exorbitant costs, there's no neutrality issue.
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If Google is doing something wrong too then people will rail against them too. But anybody older than 10 should know that "He did it too!" is not a defense.
What the hell is AT&T smoking? Net Neutrality has nothing to do with phone service at the phone network level. Net Neutrality is all about internet network packet delivery and it is basically an Internet Service Provider issue, not about phone service. Last time I checked Google isn't an ISP (to third parties) while AT&T is for a large chunk of this country and as a major packet routing network (aka backbone provider) between various ISPs. AT&T trying its best to spread FUD as usual as it did in order to get laws passed to ban Municipal ISPs.
This space is not for rent.
I'm not really your target audience here, but if you are trying to persuade the crowd that would be influenced by appeals to the "american dream", you might want to modify your spelling of "centre". They're pretty big on the "English-only" thing, and they have an odd definition of "English".
(no sig)
So, in the honest-to-goodness telephony market, there are a bunch of dodgy rural providers who rip you off when you call a number in their fiefdom. As is poorly explained in the summary and article, they're trying to maximise the number of calls to their numbers - by selling them to sex line and chatroom operators and sharing the connection revenue.
AT&T and a load of other telcos have complained about this as they are hoisted by their own petard (free calls to landlines), and the net neutrality principle. The FCC are being painfully slow in sorting this out and giving the rural providers a good bitchslap.
I don't blame Google for not routing to these numbers, there are clearly defined prefixes for premium rate services and this is just a dodge to get round that. Eventually the loophole will be closed.
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
"centre" is the English spelling, even Americans use it some of the time (dependent upon where each was brought up or edumacated?). But obviously not the type that use "nite".
Let's say AT&T is a tollway company. They own roads instead of phone networks.
If AT&T charges someone double to use the tollway if they are coming from or going to Sprint's tollway, that's a violation of neutrality. If AT&T enforces a lower speed limit for motorists coming from or going to Sprint's tollway, that's a violation of neutrality.
Let's say Google is a pizza company. They earn their living from pizza rather than software.
If you live outside of Google's delivery area, you simply aren't in their market. If you want pizza, you'll have to order it from somewhere else. If there isn't another pizza company who delivers where you live, or if they charge more or have worse pizza than Google, that's certainly not Google's fault. There is no violation of neutrality.
Let's say AT&T is a partial owner of Domino's pizza, or has some other business partnership with Domino's pizza.
If as a result of that partnership AT&T refuses to allow Google delivery cars, that's a violation of neutrality. If AT&T charges more to Google delivery cars or offers a discount to Domino's delivery cars, that's a violation of neutrality. If AT&T enforces lower speed limits on Google delivery cars or enforces higher speed limits on Domino's delivery cars, that's a violation of neutrality.
Whereby "Grammar Nazi" you mean "Diction Nazi". :o)
Funny, I thought the whole "net neutrality" issue was due to connectivity providers abusing the high cost of entry and exclusive agreements with local government to maintain an oligopoly so they can shaft people. Google just runs on top of existing infrastructure.
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I'm disappointed guys!
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
When Americans use it, they use the spelling of another dialect of English. It is not a matter of where they grew up, other than the fact that the mistake is more likely to occur, if they were brought near people who employ another dialect. It is not a free variant in the American dialect.
The user doesn't get charged at all, just the phone company. The rural phone companies are exploiting a sideways subsidy meant to allow them to charge more for connections to rural homes by redirecting calls to large call centres through their networks. It's a shell game.
is calling the kettle black! Google is pro net-neutrality because they do not want their services blocked or throttled by ISPs. AT&T is so anti net-neutrality that it is not even funny. Seems like AT&T is spewing more crap. This from a network provider that still cannot support MMS. MMS has only been around for the last seven or eight years. Google is technologically light years ahead of AT&T.
We should mandate that all phone companies allow free and unrestricted access to their networks from all comers over the internet. Phone service isn't anything special, it's just data. There's absolutely no legitimate reason anyone should pay a dime for it if they want to run it over their internet connection.
you can complain about telco's but Google's way of doing things for the last few years has been to take other companies' data and make money off it while giving nothing back.
Google bid on the 700MHz auction a few years ago and either lost or purposefully underbid to saddle VZW other ATT wtih debt while planning to ride on their network. if Google wants to be a telecom they should have won the auction or did like Boost Mobile and MetroPCS and start up a cell phone service by buying other frequencies.
Even Vonage had to bow to regulators a few years ago because it has been decided that the law is that if you provide a communications service there are a lot of laws you have to follow. and vonage tried to use the same argument
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
but that's beside the point.
As is your entire post.
Your points are valid but that does not alter the fact that Google is blocking the rural numbers and AT&T is required by the FCC to not block those numbers. Thus Google has an unfair advantage in this particular case.
I used to get a daily call from AT&T pushing their Uverse, DSL, etc. Even though I told them no, they would call back the next day. So my only course was to forward my land line to my Google Voice phone number to block them. Soon after that I received a postcard asking if I was having problem with my land line.
My land line and cell phone are both on ATT. To keep bills low, I don't have long distance (or anything else) on my land line, and I make sure never to go over my minutes on my cell plan (Giving credit where credit is due, the rollover minutes [which I did not have with verizon] do help to make this possible. So, if I am at home, I use Google voice to make out going calls via my land line. I can call anywhere in the country for free, and I'm not using my cell minutes. I can see why ATT is mad about GV, and all I can say is "Ha Ha!"
San Francisco Photographers
Now, correct me if I'm wrong (I'm sure you'll try to correct me no matter what), but there is no regulatory body for the english language. Although you might claim that there is an 'American' spelling, or an 'English' spelling (or a Canadian or Australian, or Indian, or Kiwi...) there is no body which regulates the english language (as there is for French, Spanish, etc).
... it appears that official american english isn't any more official than british english. Except that it isn't nearly so ... distinguished.
Nor does the USA have an official language - generally speaking, everyone speaks english or spanish, but given the crazy laws that have been proposed (and failed) that would make English the 'official' language
Y'all.
Heh. Nice 'out of context' quotation there, Mr. Lawyer guy with an official, clearly legally binding and non-controversial opinion.
The lack of neutrality on the phone network exists because AT&T (along with the other Regional Bell Operating Companies, aka "ex-AT&T's" aka "Incumbent Local Exchange Comapnies") lobbied for it and they did so out of a belief that *they* owned the most valuable phone network resource (lots of subscribers) and could use the lack of peering to block competitors from entering the market (even though that was THE reason the courts caused the RBOCs to be created) by charging the competitors (CLECs) huge fees to access AT&T's customers which the CLECs would, in turn, have to pass on to their customers. Who'd buy phone service from Vonage if they had to charge you 15 times as much as AT&T or Verizon just so that Vonage customers could sometimes dial AT&T or Verizon customers?
Now the "incumbent" ISPs are making the same mistake in believing that *they* control the most valuable Internet resource (again, lots of subscribers) and want the right to charge connection fees. So what if somebody repeats what happened in the phone network world and starts up a small (restricted customer set) top-tier ISP and promises to give Google or Youtube absolutely free Internet service with the expectation that the ISP will recoup that cost (and much more) by charging the "incumbent" ISPs huge fees to connect people with Google's servers? Cha-Ching!
You'd think these people would learn from their mistakes...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences
Spend a little time looking through the list, and you'll see the whole thing is such a big clusterfuck that neither variant can claim to be more "true" English than the other can.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
What if Google had won the auction?
AT&T, every time someone accesses my website using you as an ISP, you must pay me 5$. If you don't, you're clearly against net neutrality.
A few days ago, The Iowa Department of Commerce Utilities Board put a stop to traffic pumping in Iowa. It seems that a number of small telcos like "The Farmers and Merchants Mutual Telephone Company of Wayland, Iowa" were overcharging long distance carriers for "terminating" large numbers of long distance calls that were actually shipped elsewhere. (Unlike the Internet, there is inter-company billing within the telephone system.) This service was used mostly for conference bridges and dial-a-porn. Sprint, which offers flat-rate long distance service within the US, was losing money on calls to those numbers. So Sprint blocked them and filed a complaint with the Iowa authorities.
Iowa ruled this week that the telcos were overcharging, had to stop it, and had to give the money back. Sprint also had to stop blocking, which won't be a problem once the rates come down.
The FCC is working on this problem nationally, but the worst offenders just got shut down.
Google does not provide dial tone and is not a phone company. All they do is provide a software switching service that routes calls and obfuscates a person's "real" number from their actual telco. I use the service to have multiple real phones (home, work, cell) ring at the same time when someone calls my google number. It is similar to an email service that just forwards to your current ISP's mail system. No dial tone. No rule. No wrong doing.
If Google's charging for this service, and thus passing these costs on to the customer, it's a bit like anti-phishing -- there should be a warning, but it shouldn't be blocked entirely. And it should be possible to turn the warning off.
That's the difference, and that's a possible valid point AT&T might have.
Except I think Google Voice is a free service, which means Google would essentially be swallowing these fees. What they're doing here is more akin to a backbone ISP refusing to peer with another, and I'm not sure that goes against net neutrality.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
How about instead of worrying about google voice, you find a way for me to talk for three minutes straight on my phone without dropping the call. Oh and the mms update yesterday was great! I only takes my three attempts to send a picture!
Sucks to be a telephone monopoly like AT&T is sometimes, don't it? I mean so what if they can basically print money & do whatever the fuck they want that isn't enshrined in law.
There is a war going on for your mind.
n/t
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
keep in mind that AT&T DOES block calls on it's mobile network. All international long distance and Toll numbers (1-900) are blocked by default. The 900 numbers can not even be unblocked on mobile phones. To enable international calling, one has to phone in and undergo a type of credit check before the feature will be enabled. (However, this feature is frequently added if you meet the requirements without your knowledge if you add any form of long distance/roaming to canada or mexico, since unfortunately, representatives are not trained to know that the feature isn't required for Canada, but is for Mexico.)
You're assuming Google have a peering relationship with AT&T. Since its believed google are not a Tier 1 Carrier, AT&T can still charge google a market-driven transit price.
Ugh, number portability. What a huge goddamn mess.
For the unwashed masses:
Your NPA-NXX is owned by the Local exchange carrier, When number portability came out, they basically said, "oh, well now we need twice as many numbers" One number is the REAL NPA-NXX (which is no longer your true phone number, and the other is the dialable number. So your phone number may be 123-555-1234, but the carrier's number may really be 321-555-8765. In a sense, each "phone number" is now really two. the one you dial, and the one that acts as your "address" in the phone network. Everytime you place a call, your local exchange carrier contacts the original owner of that number to find out if it still owns it. If it isn't still owned, then it goes 'ok, who does?", and contacts the number.
On a mobile phone, this is the MIN and MDN, you might see references to this if you have a CDMA phone. GSM phones will never know what their MIN is unless they call their carrier and ask. But it's not useful to you anyway.
But thats beside the point. Number portability, isn't. It's implemented as a series of work-arounds, and some carriers utilize call forwarding instead. There will never be a proper implmentation of number portability unless the phone system becomes an all digital, all IP peer network. Because then, instead of going 'who does own that number', people will be able to just phone mommy@example.com and the SIP or equivilent provider will send that along the lease expensive route possible. If mommy@ happens to have a IP phone, it would bypass the switched phone network entirely. If mommy@ doesn't, then long distance can be bypassed by having the call originate at the least-expensive termination point on the IP network.
People already do this with long distance cards and "unlimited mobile to mobile" calls. They simply bridge two end points of different carriers (eg verizon and at & t) by having both calls terminate at the same physical location or at VoIP locations and some hardware trickery. Given, it requires two mobile phones to setup, if you want to have unlimited calls to your kid in california on verizon while you are using at&t. Your kid calls into the local M2M number, and you call the local M2M number, and they connect it via VoIP. Yes there is lag, but hey, who cares when it's free?
Doesn't matter whether they do or they don't. Their argument is bogus either way. Why bother evaluating terms beyond those necessary?
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
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I, sir, am very offended by the blatant lie in your post.
-Satan
Wow buddy I think you've been drinking a little too much of the Olde English 800.
The current fix for number portability is permanent databases containing every number redirect ever. It's an ugly hack for a problem that is really a design flaw due to a bad assumption.
When at&t provides FREE service we can allow throttling. Google has no telco infrastructure, only web based services. at&t must have cooked this red herring up in room 641, got bored while funneling all our messages to big brother.
The word is "flout", which means
Not "flaunt"
AT&T flaunts its hypocrisy by flouting not only Net Neutrality rules and principles, but also by ignoring the rules of using words correctly. Triple hypocrisy word score! AT&T wins again!
--
make install -not war
A couple more criticisms and we'll have them completely surrounded!
Google bid to make the network more open and made the frequency more useful for EVERYONE... That was a very good thing. Weird you'd pick that to complain about, it was pretty much an act of charity to the whole of the US.
That seems fair enough. I think I must have been crankier than usual, last night.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Google bid on the 700MHz auction a few years ago and either lost or purposefully underbid
I'm not sure if you understand how an auction works but there's no such thing as 'underbidding'. You bid what you want to pay, and if someone else wants to pay more they bid more. Your lack of auction savvy makes me wonder why you aren't condemning the other parties at the auction for purposefully inflating the price instead!
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.