FCC Investigates Google Voice Calling Restrictions

Breaking News Online is reporting that the FCC is interested in Google’s policy on blocking some rural area phone numbers.

UPDATE: It’s on the Globe and Mail’s site too now.

The FCC’s wireline competition bureau chief Sharon Gillet wrote: “Recent reports indicate that Google’s Google Voice service restricts calling from consumers to certain rural communities. In light of pending Commission proceedings regarding concerns about so called “access stimulation,” the Commission’s prohibition on call blocking by carriers, as well as the Commission’s interest in ensuring that “broadband networks are widely deployed, open, affordable, and accessible to all consumers, we are interested in gathering facts that can provide a more complete understanding of this situation.”

Google’s senior policy director Richard Whitt responded: “The reason we restrict calls to certain local phone carriers’ numbers is simple. Not only do they charge exorbitant termination rates for calls, but they also partner with adult sex chat lines and “free” conference calling centers to drive high volumes of traffic,” Whitt wrote. “This practice has been called “access stimulation” or “traffic pumping” (clearly by someone with a sense of humor). Google Voice is a free application and we want to keep it that way for all our users — which we could not afford to do if we paid these ludicrously high charges.”

Apparently AT&T asked the FCC to look into Google’s blocking of these numbers.