If you've had to do phone conferencing at work, you're probably familiar with these free conference services that AT&T/Cingular has just decided to block. The company claims that these services, many of which are terminated (the end point of the call) in a call exchange in Iowa that has a 712 area code. The local carriers of this exchange are charging an "exorbitant" amount of money for AT&T to pipe their calls through—enough so that AT&T's even filed sue against them.

What does this mean to you? AT&T's about to cut off your access to many 712 numbers from companies like FreeConferenceCall.com very soon. This, no doubt, is meant to pressure the local providers to lower their rates or face the fact that AT&T's tens of millions of users will no longer be calling their customers. – Jason Chen

AT&T/Cingular blocks cellular customers from free conference call services [Ars Technica]

Contact information for this author is not available.