FCC Takes On Apple And AT&T Over Google Voice Rejection
techcrunch.com
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We may actually get some visibility into the embarrassingly capricious and opaque App Store policies.
I wouldn't hold my breath. This just adds a lot of busywork for Apple's lawyers. I'm sure they'll justify in detail every piece they want to keep private, and the FCC isn't interesting in pissing people off by blowing their secrets.
My guess is that this list of questions is just for openers. The answers will lead to follow up questions.
"In light of pending FCC proceedings regarding wireless open access (RM-11361) and handset exclusivity (RM-11497), we are interested in a more complete understanding of this situation."
I'll bet those have something to do with the swift response by the FCC.
I'm not familiar with the relevant law, so maybe I just don't understand. Is it illegal to run a proprietary phone platform and lock competitors out?. Isn't that basically what has always been the case in the pre smart phone era?
Don't get me wrong, I don't like what Apple/AT&T does and as a developer I'm not going to sign up to a platform that puts me in such a weak position. But I see that as an issue between me and Apple. I'm not sure why I need the government in it.
I think Apple's locking out of Google is very similar to Microsoft's locking out of Netscape. It's reasonable tobring the samre monopolies law to bear, I think.
There are all sorts of exclusivity arrangements or vendors selling only their own branded wares or that of their partners in their own store. It's not like Apple invented this scheme. For a very long time telcos selected every single application that was allowed to run on their network.
Consumers have their own means of defending against such practices. They can simply stop buying iPhones for instance. It's not like there were no alternatives. As a consumer, in this case, I have to say don't need the government.
(hm, the implicit conclusion is that I'm not hip...)
I suppose the question is whether the concerns of one marketplace (handsets) should override theneed of another (apps). As someone who hasalready bought an iPhone for what is a considerable amount of money, I don't like the turn towards crippling a product I thought was mine.
It was cute when Apple locked down its operating systems, because there was no serious threat to the market -- but with two big companies involved in flagrantly anti-competitive behavior, in a market the government understands better, there's a higher standard for fair play here.
So at this point I fail to see what's the issue other than some disappointed iPhone users. Maybe there's a legal problem. We will see.
5. What other applications have been rejected for use on the iPhone and for what reasons? Is there a list of prohibited applications or of categories of applications that is provided to potential vendors/developers? If so, is this posted on the iTunes website or otherwise disclosed to consumers?
6. What are the standards for considering and approving iPhone applications? What is the approval process for such applications (timing, reasons for rejection, appeal process, etc.)? What is the percentage of applications that are rejected? What are the major reasons for rejecting an application?
http://www.tuaw.com/2009/07/30/yeah-theres-an-app-for-that-b...
Not only did Riverturn see its app pulled, it is also responsible for the resulting refund requests... That's just wrong.
Confidentiality requires a "preponderance of the evidence", as judged by the acting chief (James D. Schlichting). He will base his decision off the following information:
(1) Identification of the specific information for which
confidential treatment is sought;
(2) Identification of the Commission proceeding in which
the information was submitted or a description of the
circumstances giving rise to the submission;
(3) Explanation of the degree to which the information
is commercial or financial, or contains a trade secret
or is privileged;
(4) Explanation of the degree to which the information
concerns a service that is subject to competition;
(5) Explanation of how disclosure of the information
could result in substantial competitive harm;
(6) Identification of any measures taken by the
submitting party to prevent unauthorized disclosure;
(7) Identification of whether the information is
available to the public and the extent of any previous
disclosure of the information to third parties;
(8) Justification of the period during which the
submitting party asserts that material should not be
available for public disclosure; and
(9) Any other information that the party seeking
confidential treatment believes may be useful in
assessing whether its request for confidentiality
should be granted.
You signed up for a highly proprietary and controlled walled garden when you got an iPhone. I did too. When you ran into some limitations you didn't like, you jailbroke it and loaded some things Apple and/or AT&T didn't want you to load.
If you don't like this whole paradigm, why get an iPhone? Why not get an Android or something else? For that matter, why does Google bother releasing an iPhone app; why not build the Android into a handset that is tightly coupled/integrated with Google Voice? Seems like that would be a fine marketing coup for the former.
I'm just not sure what there is to whine about here. Of course enhanced voice application services aren't going to be allowed on the phone because they are perceived as encroaching on possible or actual carrier revenue streams. Of course you can't put applications on it that make a "dumb pipe" of the carrier's data network in order to deliver voice. If you don't like this set of circumstances, pursue a solution by competitive means, not legislating it; vote with your feet and quit buying iPhones until the exclusive distribution contract with AT&T expires, and thusly encourage Apple to diversify its retail blend to include other network operators with more liberal approaches.
Really - what, do you expect that a de facto contractually sanctioned monopoly (AT&T) is going to act in the spirit of the public welfare or consumer choice when it perceives a conflict of interest? Seriously?
Neither the courts nor the FCC should be looking at this. Consumers just need to take their wallet elsewhere.
EDIT: I very much concur with the poster above who speculated that AT&T's 3G network doesn't have the bandwidth to handle a large amount of relatively constant (at a certain baseline) voice traffic generated by something as popular as GV. Anybody who deals with mobile issues routinely can tell you that AT&T's 3G network is positively the worst in the land, and oversubscription in many MSAs is unbearably high. You want 3G bandwidth, go with Sprint, or maybe T-Mobile.
It would be hard to see what is controversial about this proposal if that weren't present. What, is AT&T complaining about more subscription minutes being used?
Number portability in the US as it is now only works if your new billing address is in the same zip code as your old number, and usually doesn't work at all when you're trying to port out of a VoIP provider or in to a PoTS line.
http://www.localcallingguide.com/lca_prefix.php?npa=404&...
You can do an NPAC dip on it and find that it's not ported, so it really is being originated by bandwidth.com's facilities.
There's nothing "virtual" about any of this.
That some organizations' LNP processes are so dysfunctional as to make it a de facto reality - of that I have no doubt.
There are numerous SIP softphones for the iphone/touch, so this means you can essentially do free VoIP.
Why it only works with Gizmo SIP numbers is unclear. Seems like it should work with any SIP number, including one you host on your own servers.
I think people want some honesty, especially from a company that uses slogans like "Think Different".
Isn't the answer already contained in your question? The real situation is that developers know that they are walking a fine line with applications that "threaten their platform". No big surprise there.
I get a feeling that banning Google Voice was an attempt to be more consistent, as some have blamed Apple for cronyism in relation to Google.
I know this isn't going to be a terribly popular point here, because, well, we all do want to get our way. But just consider how much you'd like to find yourself on the receiving end of one of these letters.
The government is not getting involved because people want to have their cake and eat it to, (although that is a pretty good default assumption), but because there appears to be collusion involving regulated resources.
As for violating regulations, please find for me the regulation that they have violated. It seems to me that their present sin consists of doing something unpopular.
Apple and AT&T should have every right to be as opaque as they want. If you don't support their policies and pricing, switch to another carrier and buy another phone.
In a completely non-monopolistic scenario, which this is, the government should have no concern whether a company's action's harm customers or not, since the customer has complete choice in whether to buy the service or not.
This is precisely a situation in which the customer wants to have his cake and eat it too. Regulated resources are by definition a case when the customer wants to have his cake and eat it too.
The FCC said why they wanted this information. They wanted this information as part of its examination of net neutrality and exclusive phones. The FCC doesn't even look at collusion and antitrust - the FTC does.
The idea that there's some monolithic "government" is juvenile at best.
Thank you. It should, however, be noted that as Goldman Sachs rehires, the government will get bigger. Oh wait, I forgot that I'm not Matt Taibbi, so scratch that last sentence.
Are you serious? Do you pay attention to what goes on at all?
Um, no, not with government-administered public airwaves, they don't.
The FCC is investigating to see if any regulations had been violated; proof and a finding of guilt or innocence will come later, but it seems to me there is probable cause to investigate at this point.
Unfortunately, the iPhone is NOT a publicly owned natural resource, but maybe phone numbers are.
Congress has passed legislative caveats around the DMCA for cell phones. Meaning you can unlock them. Well at least I haven't seen Apple or anyone else yet sue someone or call the FBI for someone doing so. So I guess they don't want to test the waters around whatever legislation actually was passed (of course, I don't read hundreds of pages of legislation, so I'm speaking off stuff I"ve read about it). The purpose of such legislation is part of enabling consumers to not be bound to a carrier. I don't know what else exists, but its clear Congress has made some progress on letting cell manufactures know that carrier freedom is on the landscape.
So can I have the right to broadcast my own GSM signal in the 900 MHz range, or a perpetual sweet-heart franchise agreement with my local municipal government to run last-mile internet to my neighborhood's houses?
These are natural monopolies we're dealing with. My options are constrained to carriers that have been granted guaranteed access to public airwaves by the FCC. The carriers then use technical (carrier locks), legal (contracts), and social (difficult cancellation processes) means to lock consumers in.
The carriers then collude with handset makers to restrict consumer choice further by locking handset features, and restricting the applications that they run. There are ways around this (such as buying third party unlocked, unrestricted phones), but carriers and handset makers leverage their government-backed market position to discourage consumer adoption.
There is nothing natural about a monopoly (or in this case, oligopoly) ordained by government. And that is the problem that should be addressed directly. Current government policies create an absurd amount of artificial spectrum scarcity.
Edit: Obviously I wasn't clear here -- I should have been straightforward rather than going with a clever turn of phrase. I meant to say, as a point of accepted definition, that government-granted monopolies are not 'natural monopolies.' Natural monopolies are monopolies that occur 'naturally' in the market because of conditions or extreme capital requirements.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercive_monopoly
[Edited]
Municipalities also have natural incentives to provide sweet-heart franchise agreements -- it's generally too expensive to do otherwise once the infrastructure is in place, often partially subsidized.
We may just be disagreeing to disagree at this point. I'll let you have the last word here.
This is a one-sided description and a false dichotomy. A non-regulated natural monopoly can be just as suppressive as a government enforced-coercive monopoly. A regulated natural monopoly does not also require the creation of a government-enforced coercive monopoly.
The inefficient private solution stayed the adoption of a publicly administered one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
And that is the problem that should be addressed directly. Current government policies create an absurd amount of artificial spectrum scarcity.
Liberalizing spectrum allocation policy -- or opening the airwaves to anarchy -- wouldn't solve the problem that wireless telecoms is a very strong natural monopoly.
Regulation of this sort is the same as partial nationalization, and has the same effect to a measured degree. When people anticipate that the returns on their winning bets will be 'moderated,' or that they will have to set business policies for the 'greater good,' they will in the future make less risky bets or put less capital at risk.
Natural monopoly. Not the same thing.
The cellular industry has seen massive consolidation and reduction in consumer choice over the past 15 years -- the existing 5 national wireless carriers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular) are comprised of literally hundreds (if not thousands) of formerly independent regional carriers. Cingular itself started as a conglomeration of 100+ regional carriers, before a few more mergers made Cingular into the new AT&T.
This is not a particularly strong testament to consumer choice and competition in the face of a natural monopoly.
Too often, I think, we judge 'harmful' by the impossible standard of "could I imagine things being better if I could force others to do things exactly my way" rather than "would we be better off if they didn't exist at all."
So that is to say, sure, if a company is actually causing a harm, in the legal sense of the word (committing fraud, breaking contracts, etc.), then they should have to pay restitution for that. That's what the law is for. Not to second-guess how companies could better serve their customers.
Disclaimer: IANAFCCW (I am not an FCC wonk.)
Because Apple sells devices that use the public airwaves, they are subject to regulation, and the agency in charge of that is the FCC?
EDIT: typo
The network is not able to handle the load now and if they allowed Skype, Sling and others it probably be even worse. Though if iPhone was not exclusive to them, a lot of their problems would be solved!
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/29/att-dont-blame-us-for-t...
Although just recently released GV if released on the iPhone would become a staple app; free SMS. Thus, with everyone using it would put a further strain on AT&T's already drained network, as well cut into PROFITS. So, it could possibly be both.
Also these applications exist and are allowed on other phones on AT&T. Of course the popularity of the iPhone, bundled with the App Store single point of distribution makes it possible for AT&T to insert themselves and have any control. Perhaps if they'd be willing to build out their network more instead of fighting the future.
Same here once you release a software product that carries an API you policing it can result in an unwanted results!