Congress members ask FCC to investigate Google Voice call blocking

Members of the House of Representatives have sent a letter to FCC Chairman Genachowski requesting a formal investigation into Google's refusal to allow Google Voice to connect with phone numbers served by some rural phone companies. All the congress members involved hailed from rural districts where their constituents might fall victim to the call blocking.

This latest complaint comes on the heels of AT&T's letter to the FCC in September urging a probe of the Google Voice services. AT&T's letter claimed Google's unified calling platform has an unfair advantage by refusing to terminate certain calls to rural areas, a practice the FCC has banned for telecom service providers. Additionally, Speakeasy.com took a note from Google and notified their VoIP users that they would be blocking certain numbers.

Once the FCC does take on this investigation and starts making rulings, it will be interesting to see if VoIP and Internet voice apps will be held to the same competitive rules as the traditional telecom providers.

For more:
- read this Information Week article [1]

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