HypocriTy
09/29/2009 12:50
AT&T Inc. (T) has gone crying to the FCC about supposed net neutrality violations on the part of Google Inc. (GOOG) and all I can say is, don’t let the red herring fool you. AT&T is ticked that Google Voice does not work in parts of the United States where intercarrier connection fees would cost Google a pretty penny. AT&T is claiming breach of net neutrality principles. Google’s rebuttal is that Google Voice is a free service and, to keep it that way, connecting to high-cost networks makes no sense. Besides, the Web company argues, it is not a telecommunications provider and therefore not subject to the same rules as AT&T. Nor is Google Voice a landline replacement, Google adds. In fact, users have to have a mobile or wired device to use Google Voice. On top of all of that, Google points out, Google Voice is only available to subscribers of the GrandCentral service, the startup Google bought in 2007. That means Google Voice has a miniscule number of users, making the impact on AT&T a baby mosquito bite at best. Fair points. Which brings me back to AT&T’s hotfooting it to the FCC like the whiny kid at recess tattling on the cool kid for being cool. First, for AT&T to petulantly turn to the very agency it opposes at almost every turn sets my BS flag a-flyin’. And for AT&T to then cry foul over net neutrality, as if it supports Julius Genachowski’s new efforts, (which it doesn’t), whips that flag into a frenzy. So what is AT&T doing? It’s employing hypocrisy as a red herring. AT&T’s argument is based on a fallacy – that net neutrality and intercarrier compensation are intertwined. Ma Bell is using net neutrality as the red herring, to pull attention away from the real issue of intercarrier compensation. Why? And why now? Two reasons. One: To distract the FCC and entire industry from recent memory of AT&T working with Apple to block the Google Voice app on the iPhone (AT&T is the exclusive carrier in the United States). Google Voice lets users route all of their calls through one number that can ring to multiple phones at once. Plus it has an easy voice mail management system and other, free, features. The Bells still charge for those niceties. Two: To try to re-ignite the intercarrier compensation reform movement. AT&T and its wireline counterparts are losing millions in access fees as consumers shift to wireless and IP communications. Thus, AT&T would benefit greatly if the FCC adopted its proposed plan of carriers paying one another .0007 per minute for call termination and increasing subscriber line access charges by a couple of dollars per line. Essentially, AT&T remains mired in its Bell mindset. And I’m sorry, but there is no putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. The telecom industry has fallen off the monopoly wall and it’s morphing itself into something completely new and innovative. The LECs have got to catch up. (But how many times will we have to repeat that tired truism before the LECs listen??) If they don’t, it won’t be long before their hypocritical and herring-laden arguments become as quaint as rotary phones.
|
