Thaindian News

Washington, Oct 9 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Federal regulators and agencies will probe the complaints by AT&T, Rep. Steve Buyer and 19 other legislators that Google’s messaging and calling service, Google Voice, blocks and does not connect the calls to rural communities where local phone companies charge larger connection fees.

The Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski sent a letter on Friday to Google requesting information about its Voice service, which lets people sign up for one number that can route incoming calls to cell, office or home phones. It also lets users place calls, including international calls, at low rates.

“Concerns arose after media reports confirmed Google maintains it has the right to block calls to certain telephone exchanges because it does not believe Google Voice falls under the jurisdiction of the FCC and specifically the common carrier service,” said Buyer in a statement. “A bipartisan group of my colleagues and I are concerned when a service provider unfairly blocks calls to certain exchanges — regardless of the technology used to initiate the call whether it would be Web-based applications or traditional phone services.”

“Google Voice’s goal is to provide consumers with free or low-cost access to as many advanced communications features as possible,” wrote Richard Whitt, Google’s Washington Telecom and Media Counsel, in a blog.”In order to do this, Google Voice does restrict certain outbound calls from our Web platform to these high-priced destinations.”

AT&T has complained to Federal agencies, last month that Google is violating FCC fair competition rules by blocking calls to some rural communities, where connection chargers are themselves very high, so as to reduce what Google has to pay in access charges. Whereas, on the other hand, AT&T and other big phone companies have to carry such calls and they have to pay the access charges.