Balh!!!

It is no secret that the rejection of Google Voice from the app store has brought an investigation by the FCC, but what seems to be emerging is an better picture of the cracks in the AT&T & Apple’s lucrative partnership.

It is obvious why Google Voice would be bad news for the traditional telephone company. Their model of charging by the phone number may soon see its day. Why should I have to pay for a phone plan when the phone and data network use the exact same technology to move phone traffic? The data network gives everyone access to any place in the world, yet I have to pay for the phone number?
It’s like AT&T knew that since I jumped ship from my carrier I am some sort of captive audience. First they stick the first generation iPhone on the EDGE network, an inferior antiquated network. They charge an outlandish fee for an SMS (same network, a fraction of the bandwidth). And they still lack tethering support for iPhone users, Blackberry and windows mobile AT&T subscribers can still use tethering.