Should internet users have unfettered access to any service and any application on any device? Or do network operators have the right to place limits on what their customers can do? The current spat between Google and AT&T has thrown that question into sharp relief and served to dramatise a simmering disagreement that has finally found its way to the top of the regulatory agenda.

At issue is Google Voice, a service that makes it easier for users to bypass telecom companies – and their tolls – when placing calls. Apple’s decision to keep the service off the iPhone, for which AT&T is the exclusive network provider in the US, has drawn the scrutiny of regulators – though the telecom company drew blood last week with a counter-claim that Google Voice also restricts choice by limiting access to some phone numbers. Although AT&T has a point, this seems a diversionary tactic.

By coincidence, it was also last week that the Federal Communications Commission, carrying through on one of President Obama’s campaign promises, proposed new regulations that would prevent broadband and mobile companies from degrading or blocking services such as Google Voice, elevating the principle of “network neutrality” to a central position in the regulatory canon.

However, while consumers should certainly have access to innovative services like Google Voice from mobile handsets, it is not clear that the regulators need to intervene just yet – since the risk of unintended consequences from greater regulation, such as discouraging investment in new networks, is hard to measure.

Until now the FCC has relied on its moral authority and the threat of future intervention to dissuade network operators from placing restrictions on internet access. As services continue to evolve, this seems the right approach for now.

The mobile internet in particular is still at an early stage. Competition between mobile networks means that if one platform, such as the iPhone, becomes overly restrictive, alternatives (including handsets that run on Google’s own Android software platform) may safeguard consumers’ choice.

Regulatory restraint has so far wisely let this competitive market evolve. But heavy-handed moves such as the barring of Google Voice, which echoes a wider block on internet calling services on mobile phones, could encourage more restrictions as the FCC develops its formal rules. If that is the result, the network operators will have only themselves to blame.