FCC is taking action on net neutrality, which has impacts on Google Voice for cell phones and recent actions by Apple for iPhone – see the full article for details:

How Net Neutrality Started

Net neutrality was originally related to a concern that your local Internet Service Provider, not content to collect a monthly fee from you, might extort fees from content providers at the other end of your Internet connection so that videos and other content would come to you at the full speed that you, the subscriber, are paying for. If that happened, you might see that ABCnews.com’s web site ran much better than XYZnews.com’s web site because ABCnews.com was paying an extra fee to your cable company for better service but XYZ was not.

Heading Down a Slippery Slope

Eventually, other concerns arose when companies like Comcast, in a decision still under consideration at the FCC, throttled or limited Internet bandwidth used by subscribers who are using their home computers to participate in Peer-to-Peer networks, an activity where you are no longer using your computer to download material for your own enjoyment or upload your own email, pictures, etc. but instead are turning your home computer into a server that is passing other people’s content on to other people, in some cases 24 hours a day, at up to the full capacity of your home’s Internet connection speed. It’s like renting an apartment with all utilities paid for by the landlord, and operating it as a 30-table/24-hour diner — your neighbors and landlord will have a legitimate reason to feel that you are using the premises in a way that goes beyond fair and expected use, and in a way that has a negative impact on the landlord’s building and the neighbors.

The cable companies (and other Internet Service Providers) claim that, at some point, some uses of the consumer-level Internet service place demands on that service that go far beyond what that service was engineered to provide and either place undue burdens and costs on the service providers or are harmful to the service provided by other customers. These arguments have some merit, if they are based on content-neutral criteria that don’t serve another agenda.

Others claim that that, once Internet Service Providers are allowed to impose limits on what services their customers can connect to, this will stifle innovation, interfere with legitimate uses of domestic Internet services, and start down a slippery slope where Internet Service Providers can effectively transform what is currently viewed as a content-neutral continuous pipeline to a switched transactional connection service (like a dialed telephone service) where the Internet Service Provider can determine the quality and pricing of service to each Internet destination that you connect to. Let’s also remember that each opportunity for commercial intrusion into your ability to use the Internet is also an opportunity for government intrusion.

Where Do We Draw the Line?

Several years ago, companies like Vonage and Skype figured out how to deliver phone calls over an Internet connection. Eventually most of the major cable TV companies realized that this was a pretty good idea and that they could make some extra money by marketing a phone-type service that is generally priced just a little higher than Vonage’s price point. If your cable company started blocking your connection to Vonage to steer you to their own branded phone service, you would probably see a problem with that.

Network Neutrality and Your Cell Phone

Many high-end cell phones, such as the Blackberry and iPhone, not only include an Internet web browser, but you can load software onto them that communicates through the Internet do do things like bring you weather reports. It is only a matter of time before someone comes up with a piece of software to run on one of these phones that can make and receive phone calls using the phone’s Internet connection, and makes this software widely available.

Let’s assume that your phone plan comes with unlimited Internet service and 900 minutes of talk time. Who needs talk time if you can make and receive your calls through the Internet side of your phone plan at a much lower cost? My guess is that it may turn the economics of your cell phone service upside down and that, if this seriously catches on, phone plans with unlimited Internet service will cost a lot more. The technology already exists but just hasn’t been rolled out and made widely available, so it’s just a matter of WHEN rather than IF we see VOIP calling to and from cell phones, using the cellular carrier’s network or a Wi-Fi connection, whichever is available.

Any unlimited Internet connection, ESPECIALLY a mobile one, will encourage creative people to develop innovative ways of using that Internet connection in clever ways that were never contemplated by the providers of that service, and which may or may not end up being disruptive to the operations or economics of that service.

Of course, you may ask whether making some calls over an iPhone using its Internet connection is more disruptive than constantly watching YouTube videos over the iPhone, especially if night and weekend minutes are free on that iPhone plan. Running video and other bandwidth-intensive applications over a cellular connection is not what the network and its frequency allocations were designed for, and we’re already seeing complaints about network saturation in some locations where there are a lot of iPhones on ATT’s network.

What’s the answer to this? New frequency allocations using some of the TV channels that you lost access to earlier in 2009, which means new investment by the cellular carriers in all their towers and new investment by you in new phones in about a year or two.

Google vs. Apple

You may or may not have heard of Google Voice, which helps you manage your phone calls, voice mail, text messaging, and a few other services, including transcription of incoming voicemail messages. According to recent reports in the media, including Tony Bradley of PC World, the FCC is looking into Apple’s rejection of the official Google Voice software for iPhone, and their removal of other Google Voice apps that were previously approved for iPhone. It’s reasonable to assume that Apple has figured out that Google Voice will result in a little less revenue for their partner, ATT, and will put up with a little static from users until the FCC forces their hand, until Google Voice for Blackberry becomes widely available, or until there something else upsets the balance of power.

You Can’t Fight the Future

Mobile Internet access is gradually getting better, as 3G networks are covering more and more of the US, and the difference between small computers and cell phones is becoming blurred, so it is inevitable that whatever you can do via an Internet connection at home, you will eventually be able to do on the go. The wireless carriers will need to ensure that this doesn’t damage their ability to deliver their core services, such as delivering phone calls, and Net Neutrality enforcement will need to walk a fine line between allowing innovation while allowing wireless carriers to maintain service quality.

You can check out Google Voice here and request an invitation for a free Google Voice account.