BT Group, which virtually owns the UK telecommunications market, isn't waiting for Google (GOOG) to launch a full attack. The company probably expects to be under assault from the search engine (and advertising and e-mail) giant, so it's taking early action. Google Voice is still being tested, but words like "free" and "powerful" and "internet-based" are bound to inspire fear in even the most established of companies.

To protect itself from the eventual attack from Mountain View, BT picked up Ribbit Mobile, and testing is in progress. Ribbit's technology has some overlap with Google Voice and even beats it with a few capabilities, according to Bloomberg. Ribbit just launched its beta product this month. It allows either the user's current phone number or a new one from Ribbit -- which is no different from Google's alternative. The product suite is generally the same, with phone- and web-based voicemail retrieval and automatic transcriptions that can be sent by text message or e-mail. For an extra fee, BT's Ribbit does provide human transcription, though it is free during testing. And, calls can be taken directly from a computer, using a microphone and speakers.

When I wrote last week that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) were strong-arming Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) over its new Google Voice application for Apple's iPhone, it was hard to see how Apple could not approve a program by one of its long-time partners and then starting yanking off related programs from its App Store that had been there a while and were being downloaded and used perfectly by customers of its iPhone product. Someone was being evil here.

Now that FCC is getting involved -- it wants to know why Apple is blocking the use of the Google Voice -- will Apple have to uncover just why it's exerting so much muscular control about what types of programs it can offer on its App Store for the millions of iPhone owners to have access to? You see, when iPhone owners bought their beloved phone, they really did not own it at all. It will only work on one wireless carrier (AT&T), and only Apple has control over what applications go on its App Store for iPhone customers to download and use.

One would think that Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) would be friends. Google CEO Eric Schmidt sits on Apple's board and his company partners heavily with Apple's iPhone for Google's web products. That is, except when Google is trying to do an end-run around Apple partner AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T).

This is what it comes down to: Google Voice, the service that gives you a universal phone number that you have total control over (and even provides free text messaging!) was blocked by Apple's App Store, most likely at AT&T's request. After all, AT&T surely does not want customers bypassing its margin-heavy text messaging plans to use a free Google-provided solution.

When Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) bought GrandCentral, a small telecommunications company, a few years ago, few wondered why Google wanted to become a provider of telephone numbers.