Remember how a week ago we looked at the row brewing between Apple and Google over Google Voice? Well, this time it's US phone carrier AT&T that's getting in on the action too.
After a complaint from the carrier to the American Federal Communications Commission (FCC) claiming that Google Voice is blocking calls made to some premium-rate numbers, Google has responded with some force.
The background to AT&T's complaint is that it is forced by US common carrier laws to connect certain high-cost calls from its long-distance lines to local networks owned by other operators.
At&T says this means it has no choice but to participate in an unfair system where the local operators sometimes get to share part of those revenues with the owners of the premium-rate lines; often adult services.
However, it says, Google Voice isn't bound by law to connect such calls and is simply blocking access to them instead. This, AT&T claims is unfair and it is asking the FCC to intervene. Google, as you might expect, disagrees.
Writing on the Google Public Policy Blog, company lawyer Richard Whitt sets out his defence to AT&T's claims. He says:
Clearly, there's plenty more mileage in this argument, but why is it relevant to non-US readers? As Whitt says, "AT&T is trying to make this about Google's support for an open internet."