What is a phone service?
Net neutrality and the users right to choose their own applications (Google Voice) on iPhones has turned into a regulatory discussion about what constitutes “telephony service”. If you have an inner telecom law geek like me, the FCC investigation of Google Voice is a good read.
- AT&T Statement on Google Voice and Net Neutrality (AT&T´s letter to the FCC [PDF])
- Google´s response
Last Friday the FCC requested more information from Google [PDF] and Google has responded with this blog post: “Sex, conference calls, and outdated FCC rules“.
The issues at hand are complex, and I am not sure if regulatory intervention is appropriate. The openness of the Internet is about more than access providers traffic management policies. It´s a good thing that both the Apple AppStore and Google Voice have broaden the debate.
(See the Future of the Internet blog for an overview of Google Voice app on iPhones)
The whole thing reminds me about the discussions on bottlenecks ten+ years ago, se for example European Commission Green Paper on the convergence of the telecommunications, media and information technology sectors (COM(97)263). The debate should be less abstract this time around.
