Telco Appeals Minnesota City's Fiber-Optic Win

tsa writes "In a predictable move, TDS Telecom has filed an appeal after its complaint against Monticello, Minnesota's new fiber network was tossed by a county judge in early October. As you may remember, the city decided to build its own fiber-optic network after the telco made it clear they wouldn't build it because it wouldn't be economically feasible for them. TDS Telecom then changed its mind and sued the city for unfair competition."

Comments

wait wait wait

[neo8750]

So they refused to build one. Then the city said well we are gonna build one and proceeded to build it. Then they sued the city because they built it?

I don't see how they could unless the city made a law(replace with proper term) to not allow the building of another.

Because that's like me going to a store with 100 tacos getting to the front and saying "wow that's to much for my blood" then getting out of line watching 100 other people go through the line and once they are out of tacos going "Hey wait a minute i don't think its fair i didn't get a taco.

P Thats my 2 cents and no i didnt RTFA

Re:wait wait wait

[Belial6]

I agree with you.

I do however think that a better solution than the city building the fiber network would be for the cities to build data conduits. They already run multiple conduits through cities. Sewer, Water, Storm Drains, perhaps even gas lines. Cities know how to run conduit. As far as I know, there are no entities in the US that currently run data conduit for public use within the US.

So, if the city built a conduit system similar to the storm drains, but reserved it for use as a data conduit, they could rent out that space to ANYONE that wanted to run data lines. Whether that is for telephone, internet or cable. This would allow true competition for telephone, internet and cable within their cities, while keeping down the long term costs of ripping up streets to do maintenance. This would also be a boon to local businesses that wanted secure dedicated lines. If a hospital in town wants a secure line to a lab clinic a few miles down the road, they could have an honest to goodness dedicated line run directly to the destination point. If a local ISP wants to start selling 100 megabit internet connections, they can run their own lines.

Best of all, if some new tech comes out that requires a different kind of cabling, then it doesn't require digging up all of the streets in the city to get it deployed. It is just a matter of pulling new cable through the existing conduit.

The city doesn't have to worry about these kinds of lawsuits. The city gets to charge rent on the conduit. And the residents get a much better chance of having the latest and greatest technology in their neighborhoods.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[Sniper98G]

The Telco has used the time that they have delayed the cities project to begin laying its own fiber network. This is the very same fiber network that the city original requested to be installed.

At this point, due to the legal delays, the Telco's network is now further along than the cities. I think that they are hoping that if they can keep the city tied up for long enough then the residents will jump on their network because it's done.

I personally hope that the residents can see the advantages of their municipal plan and how it can create grater competition leading to better service for consumers.

Bye-bye TDS

[HikingStick]

My company has TDS as an Internet service provider, and I've not been impressed with their service of late. This takes the cake. I am the decision-maker at my workplace, so Monday morning will feature a few calls--both to TDS and to our regional cable provider.
 
I had been investigating a cable Internet on-ramp as a backup connection, but now I think we should just move our account away from TDS. My sales rep will hear from me on Monday morning.

Re:Corporate death penalty

[Anonymous Coward]

the city of Tacoma in Washington state was able to lay their own fiber. As a result they city has turned a good profit from leasing the fiber to local ISPs. Comcast and QWest can't even compete in terms of speed and pricing. There is NO THROTTLING AND NO CAP!!! Every city should do this. The money they make from leasing their own fiber far outweigh any benefit those ISPs can bring to the city.