http://www.esarcasm.com/6427/att-to-google-hands-off-our-sisters-mister/

read it, and pray.

dt

The telephone system is NOT the Internet. Net Neutrality would only apply to Google when they provided Internet access. (They do in Mountain View and some other places as a test.) It’s about the last mile. If Google is my Internet Service Provider and Google starts blocking INTERNET traffic to certain locations or for certain kinds of data, that would be Google breaking the rules of Network Neutrality.

Google is NOT blocking information from one computer to another on the Internet. I can chat to whomever I want using Google Talk, etc…

What Google IS blocking is the transfer of Internet data TO the PHONE SERVICE to certain phone systems. They are not providing phone service (I can’t cancel AT&T and sign up for Google Voice instead… it just doesn’t work that way) and they aren’t providing Internet Service (I can’t cancel my current Internet Service and sign up for Google’s instead)… they are merely allowing me to call a special phone number… then enter another telephone number… then have Google’s systems contact this other phone number I have entered, then connect my call for free. There was a service which provided a similar service (it was called Freeway) and it, too, blocked calls to certain numbers and it was allowed to do so.

Again… in order to use Google’s service… I have to already have phone service (because Google Voice is not a phone company) and to use the website I have to already have Internet access (because Google is not playing the ISP in this case). The FCC laws in question apply to phone companies (which Google is not) and the network neutrality laws apply to Internet service providers (which, in this case, Google is not).

There are hundreds of services (voicemail services, fax services, VOIP services) which do the same thing Google is doing (though Google Voice is a bit more innovative.) This isn’t really about AT&T attacking Google. This is about AT&T attacking hundreds of companies, many of which have been operating for years. Why now? Why not then? Simply because Google is a big target… take down the big target, and the rest crumble.

This IS a land-grab by AT&T. It’s a Hail Mary Pass.

You say that Google has 70% of the search market? Absolutely. Do you know how quickly this 70% can change to 0%? A Google user only needs to go to yahoo.com or bing.com instead of going to google.com. It’s that instant. I can’t change phone companies that easily… I can’t change cable companies that easily… I can change search providers with each and every search. I can perform 200 searches throughout the course of a day and can alternate my searches among all competition (ask.com, bing.com, yahoo.com, google.com, etc…)

I can’t, however, make 200 phone calls throughout the day and use a different phone provider for each call. I can’t change my Internet Service Provider for each of my 200 different searches. Phone service and ISP are utilities that I cannot easily change. My search provider is an end-point… I can change search providers on a whim.

So, whenever anyone claims that Google is “too powerful” because so many (70%) of the world chooses to go to Google.com for searches would be like saying NBC is “too powerful” because XX% of television viewers tune in to NBC each night. There has never been such an argument made, and yet Microsoft and AT&T try to convince the world of Google having some sort of monopoly of the hearts and minds of the people when, ironically, Microsoft and AT&T have true monopolies in the operating systems and the phone lines of the world.

Don’t let big money fool you. Read. Study. Understand. THEN chime in. Don’t just spew the same crap that’s fed to you by those who only stand to lose money because people don’t choose them as much as they have been choosing Google.

Google has claimed that net neutrality rules should not apply to its own conduct, despite the fact that it has more than 70% of the Internet search market. AT&T shows that Google services are, in fact, very clearly subject to FCC jurisdiction, and that, given Google’s pattern of behavior, the FCC cannot possibly exempt Google from the same net neutrality rules that apply to other providers of Internet-based services.

AT&T’s letter is no power grab. It is a very clever strategy to point out precisely why Google cannot be exempt from net neutrality requirements. Get it?

If the FCC does force Google to connect to the blocked numbers or some similar finding, it’s also a win for AT&T since the linchpin of their anti-NN strategy is to paint Google as the big bad evil. “You can’t make us abide by net neutrality rules and let Google do whatever it wants,” etc. Look for more emphasis on the theme of “Google is the gatekeeper,” while AT&T is just a humble provider of services.

We predicted such entertainment would occur this year, and after a bit of a wait, the theater is open again. It’d be fun to watch, if it wasn’t the future of our national broadband infrastructure twisting in the middle.

I also don’t understand why it would be worth it AT&T if Google is forced to provide phone connectivity to all. For Google, it would be a relatively small pain-in-the-A compared to their entire business. But if similar Net Neutrality rules were applied to be applied to all of AT&T’s services – voice and data, landline and mobile, it would affect AT&T MUCH MORE, don’t you think?

I don’t understand what AT&T is angling for here…

I want to, but currently spectrum usage is heavily regulated by the Government bureaucracy.