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Judge Tosses Telco Suit Over City-Owned Network

Posted by kdawson on from the why-not-sue-the-state-for-building-roads dept.

tsa sends along news of the city of Monticello, Minnesota, which was sued by their local telco, Bridgewater Telephone Company, because the city chose to build a fiber optics network of their own. The judge dismissed their complaint of competition by a governmental organization. Quoting: "The judge's ruling is noteworthy for two things: (1) the judge's complete dismissal of Bridgewater Telephone Company's complaint and (2) his obvious anger at the underfunding of Minnesota's state courts. Indeed, the longest footnote in the opinion is an extended jeremiad about how much work judges are under and why it took so long to decide this case."

26 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. Costly Waste of Time by mfh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IANAL, but the second part is a warning to TDS against trying to waste more court time. The judge is saying that he's busy enough and therefore if TDS tries to revisit this, it would be another costly loss.

    TDS lost a lot of money going after the city. They also lost a lot of revenue because they are now going to try and compete with the city (lol). And they lost the support of their community, who knows they sued the city for unwarranted tax dollars, and taxpayers love bailouts.

    --
    The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
    1. Re:Costly Waste of Time by electrictroy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Cry me a river.

      They lost money.

      Oh well! UPS and FedEx lose money every day competing against the government's postal service, and yet they both seem to be doing quite well. Instead of trying to use government to give Bridgewater Telephone a guaranteed monopoly, maybe they should take a page from UPS/FedEx and learn to compete.

      --
      The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
    2. Re:Costly Waste of Time by jgtg32a · · Score: 4, Insightful

      We can't have any competition that may actually lead to adequate service

    3. Re:Costly Waste of Time by jav1231 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly. Now they're saying, "Well now the town will have 2 networks!" Yeah, you have to COMPETE now Asshat! WTF do these people come from?

    4. Re:Costly Waste of Time by SneakyMishkin · · Score: 5, Informative

      You had better take a look at this http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2007/06/13/canadapostups.html. UPS didn't WANT to compete, they wanted to sue. Just like everyone else.

    5. Re:Costly Waste of Time by 91degrees · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Costly? They got one of their staff legal team to draft a complaint to tie them up in court for a while. TDS never wanted to win. Just to slow the city down.

    6. Re:Costly Waste of Time by jgtg32a · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Only on /. would sarcasm be marked as Insightful

    7. Re:Costly Waste of Time by JosKarith · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There really needs to be a robust system to punish people/companies that file obvious "nuisance lawsuits". The current system simply doesn't work at all.

      --
      'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
    8. Re:Costly Waste of Time by Gewalt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This was no waste of money.

      They didn't "lose" money on the lawsuit. They "made an investment". The whole point of the lawsuit was to give them a head-start in the competition against the city. They just wanted to tie the cities coffers so they could start their fiber roll-out before the city did. They succeeded in this goal, so their "investment" paid off big time for them.

      --
      Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
    9. Re:Costly Waste of Time by FireStormZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "This, of course, assumes that the government can do a better job with its limited knowledge, expertise, and equipment."

      Its not hard today to throw a rock and hit an able network/systems admin or three and many good ones who live locally might be willing to take a slight pay cut to avoid the commute into MSP or just for the fact a govt job is a much less stressful place than private industry.

      "I find it hard to imagine that running fiber around is cheaper, but it must mean that their city buildings are right next door to each other or on the same block."

      Cheaper than what? its probably slightly cheaper for them than the teleco's (after all they can way speed up their own permit process). And they seem to be reasonably densely populated (and small) for such a move

      Area
        - Total 6.2 sq mi (16.1 km)

      Population (2000)
        - Total 11,414
        - Density 1,264.6/sq mi (488.3/km)

      Actually its pretty densely populated (and small)

      --

      "There are few things that I have experienced the government doing better than a competitive private sector."

      I generally agree with this but when a government *wants* to do something like this I prefer its a local government and not the state or federal.

      --
      "Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
    10. Re:Costly Waste of Time by Locklin · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's called loser-pays. We have it up here in Canada, that and less lawsuits.

      --
      "Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
    11. Re:Costly Waste of Time by the_B0fh · · Score: 4, Informative

      *sigh* YOU just made me lose some mod points. But nevermind. Since 1970s, Memphis Light Gas and Water has been running power cables with FIBER inside. In other words, the entire city is full of dark fiber. How much extra did it cost to run the fiber? Not that much, just the incremental cost over what it cost to have power lines that were empty in the middle, instead of being filled with fiber.

      What is to stop this city from doing the same thing? It probably already did that, and that is why it feels that it can provide fiber to the house.

      Just because *YOU* don't have experience does not mean that your experience is right. People working in government agencies do not start their day thinking how they can be inefficient for you.

    12. Re:Costly Waste of Time by mweather · · Score: 4, Funny

      People working in government agencies do not start their day thinking how they can be inefficient for you.

      Some things come naturally.

    13. Re:Costly Waste of Time by mweather · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If the government got out of the business of providing a poor, unprofitable service, businesses with an interest in profit could take over and make them profitable, more efficient, and more reliable.

      More likely private industry would take over the profitable routes dropping all the unprofitable ones, making the service much worse than it already is.

    14. Re:Costly Waste of Time by mullens101 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      OK, I'll bite here ...

      If the demand is high enough

      Dude, America has one hell of a lot of rural areas where demand does not meet financial justification. This is exactly why the gov't passed a bill a few years ago to provide something like $200 million in incentives to have telecos service rural areas. The gov't recognized the criticality of decent internet service for US competition in world markets and therefore provided great financial benefits for telecos to run broadband to rural areas. The telecos took the cash and ran. Why is it OK for the telecos to take cash dedicated to a specific cause and screw the taxpayers but it's evil for the government to say "if you don't do it, we will"? There are some cases (and in this case, MANY very compelling cases) where the government is completely justified in offering services to force competition where none exists today and none is likely in the foreseeable future. If this teleco was the only decent game in town, they might wake up and realize that they are not immune from competition.

    15. Re:Costly Waste of Time by geekoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why would the government arbitrarily cripple a business? Besides the fact that if they did, they would be sued.

      COmpanies lay their own fiber all the time. Yes there are government rule regaurding this, but considering they need to rip up roaads, dig through property, and use the underground infrastruture that makes sense.

      BTW, the 'Government' needs permission to do this as well.

      I mean, really. How do you think the first company got fiber in the first place?

      Yes, this is competition. And no one has to guarantee you a service the meets some standard you want...except government agencies.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    16. Re:Costly Waste of Time by jahudabudy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why should I, or any company, be allowed to stick fiber optic cable in the ground on property that isn't mine? You seem to be saying that communities, as represented (ideally) by their government, shouldn't be allowed to provide themselves broadband service, but rather are obligated to allow private companies to use the community's property to provide that service. That was the model in many places, and communities are discovering they aren't getting good value for the privileges they allowed these private companies.

      --
      ...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
  2. While the economy fails, we still have grammar by Dystopian+Rebel · · Score: 4, Informative

    A jeremiad is by definition an "extended critique".

    May the Grammar Nazis have mercy on you.

    --
    Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
  3. Government could have fought back by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I imagine that the telco must have had to get permits to lay their own fiber. The government could have blocked those requests until the result of the case was decided, thus cancelling-out the telco's attempt to delay the government and get a head start. I wonder why this didn't happen?

    1. Re:Government could have fought back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Because blocking legitimate requests for development is generally not allowed. I know California has strict time limits for certain actions, and if no action is taken within a given period, there is the possibility for legal repercussions.

      In other words, a jurisdiction can't just say "we don't like it, go away" or "wait until we have what we want." There have to be actual grounds to put something on hold, or even more to deny a project all-together.

    2. Re:Government could have fought back by michrech · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Probably because there was no reason to deny them the permits they needed. To do so would have been a corrupt, let alone shitty, thing to do.

      I don't know about the rest of the world, however, if I were a city entity involved in a lawsuit with a telco company, I'm going to do everything in my power to be seen as treating people (especially those suing me) as fairly as possible. You don't want to get a pissed off judge any ammunition to use in his/her making an example of you. That, and it's just the right thing to do, and I wish more people felt that way.

      --
      bork bork bork!
  4. I know. by AltGrendel · · Score: 4, Funny

    Let's all send the judge $5.00.

    --
    The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination

    - Douglas Adams

  5. Missing the main point... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet...

    This gives other community precedence in other lawsuits across the nation.

    Once one telco falls, hopefully the other lawsuits will fall also, just like a row of dominos.

  6. What every telco wants... by snspdaarf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because, let's face it, what every telco wants is to provide all communities of 12,000 people with fiber to the house. What a load of crap. TDS was doing their dog-in-the-manger act, and now is only putting in fiber as an act of revenge.

    --
    Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
  7. I'm surprised... by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Informative

    Usually a smart telco doesn't sue, they simply bribe the legislature into restricting their municipal competition (bottom of page).

    (Basically, Comcast and Qwest bribed the Utah legislature into stopping their multi-muni competitor, UTOPIA, in Utah. The Utah ACLU's letter against such action is here: http://www.acluutah.org/utopia.htm)

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  8. Re:jeremiad ? by cHiphead · · Score: 4, Funny

    your decision to gerrymander on the subject is an aloof attempt to cause disruptive comprehension of the litigous subjects in question.

    rawr.

    --

    This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.