April 5th, 2007
Iowa CLEC set to battle big telco's conference-bridge blocking
A representative of Iowa-based CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) and broadband conferencing solutions provider Great Lakes Communications Corp. has emailed me with what sounds like a David-Goliath declaration of war against the big telcos.
Justification, in GLCC's view, is what it sees as recent attempts by Cingular/AT&T Wireless, Sprint/Nextel and other carriers to block the conference bridges of providers such as FreeConferenceCall.com and FreeConference.com, some of which are powered by Iowa telephone companies such as GLCC.
But now, GLCC is mad as hell and isn't going to take it any more.
According to Josh Nelson, president, Great Lakes Communication Corp. the company understands how important it is to stand up for the "little guy," or, in this case, the non-profit organizations, universities, religious groups and small businesses that lack the monetary resources and rely upon their free conferencing partners for their communications existence.
I'm now told that GLCC has embarked on an "all out grassroots campaign" to spur its state legislators, representatives in Congress, U.S. Senators, and local/national public interest groups to write the FCC Commissioners to help them understand the severity and impact of this call blocking on their constituents.
Oh, and they've got themselves a lawyer.
GLCC has also retained Jonathan E. Canis of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP to what GLCC calls an effort to "spearhead the cause for the blocking issue."
Canis will also be busy representing some of the free conferencing providers affected by the blocking.
Good luck with this FCC, Jonathan.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
