Here's the real issue (Follow the Money!):
"Whether AT&T is right depends on all sorts of technical interpretations of the commission’s policies and which regulations actually apply to Google Voice, which is a technological patchwork of telephone calling and Internet communication.
But that really isn’t AT&T’s primary concern. The company is mainly trying to score some debating points and show that sometimes companies have good reason to treat some uses of their networks differently than others. (If you do want to get into the policy minutiae, start with this post from the public-interest telecom lawyer Harold Feld .)
What AT&T and Google agree on is that the system for exchanging payments between phone companies for completing long-distance calls is deeply flawed. I looked into this last year, when Kevin Martin, then the F.C.C. chairman, wanted to reform what is called intercarrier compensation. After a week trying to understand those rules, I ran away screaming. Our long-distance system is so topsy-turvy that it makes the Mad Hatter’s tea party look like drill time at West Point."
And the struggle continues...
The lines between content, software, telecommunications services within the framework of laws and regulations continue to blur as the Internet protocols and applications become more pervasive. The issues are really important because decisions or lack of them at the FCC threaten carrier business models that have been crafted on the 1996 Telecommunications Act and the various definitions and rulings about interconnection compensation rules, subsidies (Universal Service Fund, etc.), enhanced services, and pending issues like net neutrality and others, how/if wireless carriers should be regulated, et al.
Technology marches inexorably forward as very smart people build tools and applications that have great consumer and business appeal which often threaten to upset the carefully honed business models of the telecommunications carriers.
Google and its spawn loom like a cloud over these carriers. Is it any surprise that no significant deals or partnerships have been wrought between them and Google? The big carriers , e.g., AT&T and Verizon, likely see Google as only a step away from munching their lunch, just as the newspapers believe that Google has eaten theirs by sucking away lucrative advertising dollars.
And because Google is widely seen as being very close to TeamObama by virtue of the warm relationship between CEO Eric Schmidt and President Obama, the carriers are concerned that future regulatory and legal decisions in this arena are more likely to favor Google's positions over their own.
No comments:
Post a Comment