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Telco Sues Municipality For Laying Their Own Fiber
unreceivedpacket writes "Ars Technica reports that a company called TDS Telecom is attempting to sue the town of Monticello, Minnesota for deploying their own fiber network. Shortly after the town voted to lay the fiber, TDS Telecom filed suit and notified the town that they would be deploying their own fiber network. The telco has recently responded to Ars Technica, saying they only sued to save Monticello from itself, apparently feeling that the municipality is unprepared for the onerous costs of maintaining such a network, and would lack the expertise to do so."
In a nutshell the telco is suing the city with the justification that they are protecting the city from itself? I think I would have a lot more respect if they just came right out and said they didn't want the city as competition. If you're going to be a greedy soulless corporation then be one for crying out loud. Knock off the fake altruism because no one is buying it. And I recommend they hire a better legal team. Every soulless corporation requires a top notch crack team of lawyers to distort and manipulate the law in their favor. "any utility or other public convenience from which a revenue is or may be derived." I know next to nothing about law but even I can see this is cut and dry. The city raised bonds to provide what is definitely a public convenience, yet the telco sues anyway. Unfortunately I think their tactic is to try and get an injunction then keep the case in court for the next two decades.
How do towns set up a municipal electric service without being sued?
More importantly, how many speeding/parking/jaywalking tickets does this Telco plan to get when passing through town?
I sat down to write a new sig tonight and all I did was make the chair warm.
Why let a town build a network with taxpayer money when you can build a network with that same money, then charge them again for using it? It's the classic telco business model.
How is this any different than a town building a road. A solid internet infrastructure is just as important to city/state growth as a the transportation system. It's just simple.
"No fair, I can't compete with the state." is not a good enough reason for me to care about your problem. Things like this would have been used to stop building the Interstate system in late 50s. Reasoning like this has allowed the infrastructure of the US to suffer, because someone companies are magic beings that solve problems and the government just ruins your life.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Towns already run their own water pipes, sewer pipes, fire alarm systems, roads, etc. What is one more cable?
I call BS if you say running fiber takes more expertise than running water and sewer pipes. Electrons can go uphill of their own accord, water needs help.
I recall, decades ago, when Ann Arbor was about to repave Division street - the main north-south drag for the core city. They were going to do it up properly so it would last.
They'd had a lot of trouble with utilities tearing up the roads to work on their underground stuff, then not restoring them adequately. (In southern Michigan winters this resulted in frost heaves that soon tore the road back open, resulting in the need for more repairs - sometimes over and over. By which time the information about which utility had torn it up originally had been lost.)
They couldn't really ban them from digging up the street to work on their stuff.
So they passed a new ordinance that would result in a MAJOR cost for any company that tore up the street AFTER it was redone, for a decade or so, and gave 'em some large number of months to get their underground installations fixed up and upgraded before the repaving. (I think they imposed some "fee" - read "fine" or "tax" - but don't know the details.)
That street was dug up all summer as the several utility companies rebuilt everything under it and installed new conduit and manholes for future expansion. (Better to get it in now, while there's no special issues on doing the work, than take the chance that the city's post-repaving gotchas would stick in court - or cost more in court fees to get them struck.)
And that road surface stayed pristine for years.
Now it seems to me that, if this telco wants to play hardball, this municipality could find similar stuff to do to them. B-)
Granted that the courts might eventually strike down whatever the city does as unfair competition, too. But it would still cost the telco more money to get that to happen - and tit-for-tat is well recognized as a very successful strategy.
Downside is it needs to be done in a way that doesn't end up stalling both projects while the citizens sit on their thumbs waiting for an internet connection.
= = = =
Also: Didn't a federal court just strike early-termination fees for cell phone providers? Might be possible to go after that if the telco does a long-term contract lockin to try to keep the citizens on their net once the delayed city net is live.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Fiber to the home is what is known as a natural monopoly, there is an (essentially) fixed cost for deploying and maintaining such a utility and it is extremely inefficient and cost-ineffective to have multiple providers of the same service. The most efficient way to address this is to do exactly what the city set out to do, have a government run entity maintain the physical plant and allow competing private business to provide products over that plant. If you allow a monopoly private business to maintain the plant you simply increase the subscribers costs by the profit of the private business (baring any economies of scale enjoyed by the company operating a business larger than the incorporated area, but history has shown this is generally minimal and far overshadowed by the profit costs)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Sorry, wrong. The *federal* government should do as little as possible. Regulate interstate commerce, defend our borders and coin money, specifically.
This is a perfect example of something a *local* government should do, if the local populace votes and approves of it.
Yes, if the council screws up maintenance, they can just sell it on to somebody who can handle it. They don't need to be protected from themselves, if it doesn't work they can sell it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
*spits on ground in disgust*
...would be to build as just a foundational infrastructure. It would be fiber all the way from each home and business to the various connection points. These would be buildings, not little pedestals. These fibers would then be leased out to any company wanting to provide services over them. There would be 4 actual optical fibers to each home and business (more for special cases), so it would be possible for "light up" providers to offer only one type of service, and customers could get their phone, TV, and internet, from different providers if they so choose. Or people and businesses could lease them directly to have a very high speed point to point service wherever they want.
It's not competing against the telco ... it's providing them with a fiber based infrastructure they can use. It's not competing against cable TV ... it's providing them with a fiber based infrastructure they can use. It's not competing against broadband services ... it's providing them with a fiber based infrastructure they can use.
It's just a road. The city and state generally build roads and let people use them. The directions the telcos and cable TV companies are trying to go is the equivalent to not only them building the road, but also them building all the vehicles and allowing no other vehicles on the road, and them restricting what parts of town people are allowed to even go to.
Cities often provide public transportation. So some basic default services is not out of the question, anyway. But it might get structured so it is not a major competition. For example, it might provide connectivity only within the city itself and not to the world internet. It might carry only over-the-air TV stations, and not all those satellite based national channels.
I'd bet a lot of business would love to jump in and provide services over an infrastructure they don't have to pay all that up front cost to build. Whether it's paid for by leasing the fibers, or by taxes, is something the city would have to decide.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
You don't have unregulated capitalism. That would actually be a good thing. While there is a government there is no unregulated capitalism. without a government this wouldn't even be an issue.
sorry, wrong.
I live in the southeast.
Whenever a hurricane hits the gas prices shoot up a buck because the republicans killed off the regulations on oil speculation, and refuse to punish oil cos when they go-a-gouging.
The last time we had "unregulated capitalism", snake oil salesmen made people wary of medication, meat was as hazardous as nuclear waste, and we had a stock market crash that put 30% of the populace into hoovervilles.
The correct answer is "proper regulation".. the kind that places big business and the government at loggerheads.
When big business and government fight each other making no gains, the little guy wins.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!