NEWS ANALYSIS: Showing perhaps that they learned the lessons of last year’s net neutrality battles, the Iowa telcos and their Internet-based ‘free-calling‘ partners have formed their own ‘grassroots‘ coalition, complete with its own blog-like website to battle what they call “myths” being spread by big telcos, their opponents in the ongoing controversy.
Representatives for the Iowa telcos admitted in email exchanges that a weekend story about the controversy by the Associated Press — which played up sex-chat services in in its lead — brought more urgency to their task, given the widespread reach of the wire service. In a previous letter to the FCC, AT&T had also emphasized the adult-themed services. While such services are not in violation of any laws, the nudge-nudge implications of AT&T’s message (picked up dutifully by AP) were perhaps just the first sign of how nasty this fight may get.
While FCC chairman Kevin Martin said last week that the commission had told large carriers to stop blocking calls to the Iowa-based operations, those infractions were only part of the ongoing tussle. Members of the carrier coalition (ungainly named the Coalition for Carrier Neutrality) as well as other sources of ours inside the telecom biz claim there are network-ops dirty tricks going on that are sporadically limiting call throughput — while also admitting such tactics are almost impossible to prove.
On the above-board side of the battle, Sprint Nextel formally joined the fight by filing its own lawsuit against a group of Iowa telcos and the calling service providers in federal court Tuesday, joining AT&T and Qwest, the latter of which also recently filed a formal complaint with the FCC.
Complicating matters a bit is the fact that the coalition does not speak for all the participants on the Iowa/Internet side of this battle — in fact, some background grumbling has already started from some Internet calling providers, who are charging that some of the newer entrants into the field “got too greedy” and spoiled the game by running up big bills for the large providers.
Still, the coalition, led by veteran D.C. telecom lawyer Jon Canis, showed it can at least match wits with AT&T in a rhetorical battle, squelching the adult-chat argument by noting today on its website that “AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest numbers power adult chat sites such as RedHotDateline, LiveLinks, and TangoByPhone.”
Touche! More to come, we’re sure.
UPDATE: Michael Balmoris, AT&T spokesperson, replied in an email:
We have no relationship — revenue sharing, having these numbers, or otherwise — to the web sites/chat lines these guys cite. Their claims are baseless and are a complete falsehood; underscoring their lack of credibility.
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