AT&T Lashes Out Against Google Voice. Again.

The ongoing he-said, she-said exchange between Google Inc. and AT&T Inc. over the Google Voice application blocking calls to some rural exchanges added a chapter Wednesday night. AT&T has fired off a statement that the issue is about net neutrality. Period.

Google Voice, it maintains, is gaining an unfair competitive advantage by being able to block calls to some rural exchanges that charge high, margin-killing termination rates. Meanwhile, it and other traditional carriers are prevented by the FCC from doing just that. The incumbent’s statement reads that the situation "demonstrates exactly why any open Internet principles must also apply evenhandedly to providers of Internet applications, content and services."

Google’s Richard Whitt, senior counsel, earlier this week pointed out that AT&T and other LECs charge for their services and are the beneficiaries of Universal Service Fund subsidiaries. But in Google’s case, the call restriction is necessary in order to keep its service free, because some exchanges for so-called “traffic-pumping” numbers (sex chat lines, free conferencing) charge “exorbitant” termination rates that it cannot afford to pay.

Pshaw, said AT&T on Wednesday. Also, after doing some testing, AT&T said that it found Google was blocking not just traffic-pumping numbers, but also an "ambulance service, church, bank, law firm, automobile dealer, day spa, orchard, health clinic, tax preparation service, community center, eye doctor, tribal community college, school, residential consumers, a convent of Benedictine nuns, and the campaign office of a member of the U.S. House of Representatives."

The controversy comes as the FCC gets set to unveil a network neutrality proposal next week. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has made the issue of “network gatekeepers" a top priority Meanwhile, Google Voice, which right now is in a trial, invitation-only phase, is ramping up its numbers of users by allowing those who have been invited to use it to add friends and family as users.