Venable partner Rick Joyce was quoted in a September 29, 2009 story posted to WashingtonPost.com’s “Post I.T.” blog about AT&T’s recent complaint to the FCC alleging that Google’s Google Voice product was causing the Internet search and advertising giant to break telecom laws. According to the story, many analysts and telecommunications attorneys believe that AT&T’s complaint may have opened the door for the FCC to reconsider how it regulates the rapidly evolving telecommunications industry.

AT&T’s letter to the FCC alleges that Google Voice, which allows users to direct inbound calls coming to all of their phone numbers (i.e. home, office and mobile) to the phone number of their choice, was blocking some calls to rural areas. That practice, which Google admits to, violates call-blocking laws for traditional phone service operators.

Google argued that its service is an Internet application, not a telecommunications service, and is not subject to the call-blocking rules.

The communications landscape has become all the more complex as firms offer overlapping services. Internet companies offer phone service, phone companies offer Internet access, and cable companies offer phone, internet and video services.

"The reason why it has become increasingly difficult for the FCC to avoid these questions is because of the broad uptake of broadband services," said Joyce, the chairman of Venable Telecommunications Practice. "We've always said that technology in [the Internet] sector outstrips the ability for regulators to regulate it. But when 60 to 80 percent of the country has wireless and high-speed broadband access and carries a device that receives or sends all these different kinds of services, then you have reached the proverbial tipping point."

The FCC has not yet commented on AT&T's letter, but has acknowledged that is has been received and is under review.