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AT&T Reverses Policy on iPhone Internet Calls

AT&T said on Tuesday that it would no longer prevent customers with the Apple iPhone from using Internet telephone services that bypass its own voice network.

Until now, AT&T would not let users of voice services like Skype connect over its wireless data network. The Skype application on the iPhone could make calls only when connected to a Wi-Fi network.

The issue of what sorts of services wireless carriers should allow has become the subject of scrutiny by the Federal Communications Commission, which is considering a proposal to formalize its network neutrality principles and extend them to cellphones. Those principles prohibit carriers from blocking competitors’ services and applications.

Skype, which eBay is selling, made a formal complaint to the commission two years ago, saying it was being blocked on AT&T’s iPhone. But the issue did not get much attention until Julius Genachowski was appointed commission chairman by President Obama.

After his appointment, the commission began looking at AT&T’s decision to block an application for the Google Voice service on the iPhone. Google Voice uses a customer’s wireless minutes to place calls over regular phone circuits rather than bypassing them as Skype does. But some of the policy issues are similar.

In response to the commission, AT&T filed a letter in August saying that it had not asked Apple to block Google Voice, but added that it had banned services like Skype, which use the voice-over-Internet protocol to place calls.

“IPhone is an innovative device that dramatically changed the game in wireless when it was introduced just two years ago,” Ralph de la Vega, chief executive of AT&T’s consumer and wireless unit, said in a statement. “Today’s decision was made after evaluating our customers’ expectations and use of the device compared to dozens of others we offer.”

AT&T does allow other smartphones, including those that use the Windows Mobile operating system, to use Internet voice services. Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint do not have policies that block Internet calling. Users of Android phones can also use Skype, but those calls use the customer’s voice minutes because Google’s Android operating system is not capable of making Internet calls.

Skype says that its application for the iPhone and iPod Touch has been downloaded six million times, adding that those devices represent 10 percent of its installed base.

Separately on Tuesday, Verizon Wireless said it did not plan to block Google Voice on two new handsets based on the Android operating system.

“Either you have an open device or not,” said Lowell C. McAdam, the chief executive of Verizon Wireless. “This will be open.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: AT&T to Let iPhone Users Make Calls on the Internet. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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