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Google Fiber In Austin Hits a Snag: Incumbent AT&T
AcidPenguin9873 writes "Earlier this year, Google announced that it would build its next fiber network in Austin, TX. Construction is slated to start in 2014, but there's a hitch: AT&T owns 20% of the utility poles in Austin. The City of Austin is considering a rules change that would allow Google to pay AT&T to use its utility poles, but AT&T isn't happy about it. The debate appears to hinge on a technicality that specifies what types of companies can attach to the utility poles that AT&T owns. From the news story: 'Google 'would be happy to pay for access (to utility poles) at reasonable rates, just as we did in our initial buildout in Kansas City,' she said, referring to Google Fiber's pilot project in Kansas City...Tracy King, AT&T's vice president for public affairs, said in a written statement that Google "appears to be demanding concessions never provided any other entity before. ... Google has the right to attach to our poles, under federal law, as long as it qualifies as a telecom or cable provider, as they themselves acknowledge. We will work with Google when they become qualified, as we do with all such qualified providers," she said.'"
A torches and pitchforks parade at the AT&T offices and the homes of local executives might be required however.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
There's not a lot to say in favor of [local telecom] just about anywhere in the U.S. Their margins are higher than any other substantial industry, and yet they're constantly in fear of even microscopic changes, pushing absurd protectionism through every level of government.
No surprise from ATT, I doubt anyone expected anything from them except obstructionism. Cheers to the City Council for taking action that is obviously in their constituents best interest.
So, just to get this straight, a company who gained its position through a helluva lot of taxpayer dollars, much of it in the form of last mile access on public lands, now decides it has some ethical and moral right to block a competitor.
I say that every single time one of the old telco descendants does this, they are sent a bill with interest for every nickel directly or indirectly they received from the public purse, payable immediately.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Funny how AT&T gets an easement to use public (and sometimes private) lands for this, and then over time it becomes 'their' property to be used at their discretion.
In other words, the incumbent who got there by using public resources is now acting like they're private resources.
Such horse shit, and just more of governments allowing corporations to own what it essentially infrastructure paid for and used by all of us.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If they are, can't they use the poles under FCC reg? If not, why are they not considered a cable company or telco? Is it because they don't want to follow some regulation that would be required if they have that status?
This is why free market utopianism is such a crock. Business do not want to compete with each other and will use every ounce of their power & every legal trick they can create to prevent an upstart from disrupting their markets.
Ironically the only way to have a free market is if the government forces them to.
Isn't providing telecom services like internet a prima facie indication of being a telecom provider? Oh, I see they haven't gotten official recognition as a telecom. Never mind.
The "technicality" is that Google wants to act as a telecom / cable company without being listed/regulated as such.
It's reasons like this that Google decided to blaze this trail in the first place. Stunts like this pulled by incumbents are often enough to kill smaller startups and projects, whereas it will likely only be a hindrance for Google.
It seems to me AT&T's complaint is that Google isn't a telecom or cable provider as defined by federal law. Well back when it was probably defined, dedicated internet companies probably didn't exist or were in their infancy.
All the city is doing is saying yes you have to lease your polls to a ISP also. I don't see the problem.
AT&T is just trying to block competition, which I understand being greedy and they want their monopoly like every other cable co, but they are going to loose.
I wish Fed's would just add ISP's to that list. But if you read the article, the city is right. They don't want a ton of poles in 1 spot just because some douche company won't lease to another company and also construction. The poles are there, let em lease em.
The power company (owned by the city) owns 80% of the poles. AT&T owns the remaining 20%, presumably because they needed poles in some locations where there was no power pole.
It's substantially more expensive to dig trenches to bury cable than to use existing utility poles. That would be true anywhere in the world that has utility poles.
Time to send in the Phone Cops to bust some heads! Starting with Dr. Johhny Fever.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Can't Google just register as a Telecom or Cable company? Why isn't that the obvious solution? Why should they be allowed to leverage their massive presence as an outsider to the Telecom/Cable industry to force their way into that market.
So AT&T wants to sunset POTS, but still claim to be a telco? lol
every yahoo (pun intended) with a tin desk, a telephone, and a tie can set up a little telecom company with just a few thousand dollars for the lawyers to draw up the papers. many have. the reason is that they get wholesale rates from every other telecom company on colocation, facilities, duct access, dark fiber, provisioned carriers, and everything including access to the bathroom. it's infinitely cheaper than bending the ears (or passing "campaign contributions" wink wink) to scores of local politicians who are studiously looking over their shoulders. and it gouges the incumbent carriers greatly.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
So AT&T is waving their poles around in Google's face?
I am guessing they received a public easement to put up the poles. Imminent domain could just as easily force them to be returned at cost. If the had paid landowners for the rights, it would at least be more difficult.
I hope AT&T's moated fortress becomes their Alcatraz.
I own an apartment complex with 132 units. We own the fiber/CATV cable/ethernet cables from the complex telcom room out to each unit.
FIOS, RCN, Comcast and DISH are all present in the telcom room. Tenants can order up service from any of those vendors. We also offer an internet only option. If a new vendor wants to offer service to our complex, they have to get to the telcom room, but from their its easy to compete. If Google came along, they could offer service from our telcom room to the entire complex.
This works really well, and I think the concept should work on a city-wide level as well.
City owned fiber, commercial providers on an even footing.
Lower costs, better service.
The city government gave AT&T the exclusive right of way to put up poles all over everyone's property in the first place.
Under existing federal law, that ROW came under the condition that other "telecommunications providers" can lease space on the poles. The city is really just insisting that AT&T comply with the spirit of the original deal.
So we have an exclusive right granted by government, both federal and city, and now the government (still) attaches strings to that government grant. This doesn't really have anything to do with the free market at all.
The town should instruct AT&T to remove their poles from the town owned easements, or let google pay for pole access. Problem solved.
Then sub-lease access to a whole new ecosystem of internet startups that aren't telco/cable either. Then again, this is all based upon the laws/regs which are subject to change.
Even Poland
How about Google provides the cash to the city, the city buys up the AT&T poles (via eminent domain).
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
..the spirit of the original deal.
...and thousands of lawyers burst into laughter...
Telcom's are heavily regulated (FCC, public service commission, et al), and it wouldn't really benefit them in the short term. Long term it could because they would have access to the USF (Universal Service Fund), and possibly even NTCA (Rual broadband) for cost recovery with tax payer dollars.
Obviously the smartest thing for Google would to make a new subsidiary for a CLEC (Competitive local exchange carrier). They might even break even on cost deployment with the cooperate welfare provided for via the various legal means for telecommunications companies.
The only downside to all this would be the necessity to also provide telephony services as well as internet services.
Those telephony services (VoIP) can easily be delivered on the same fiber as their intended deployment, and be completely kosher with FCC requirements for a telcom.
A little more cost upfront could actually help Google turn a profit by working the same system that is currently screwing US citizens.
Surely, with all of our experience with what natural events (strong winds / tornados / hurricanes / ice stoems) can do to aerial cables, wtf isn't the city / state mandating that all new utility services are run underground?
Is best for the consumer.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
How about Google provides the cash to the city, the city
buys up the AT&T poles (via eminent domain).
Bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut, don't you think?
Who owns the poles? More importantly, who MAINTAINS the poles? In a lot of areas you've got your local telecom but it's AT&T who is responsible for maintaining the physical infrastructure. Verizon, Centurylink, TDS, etc might be your provider. That's great. Kudos to you for living in an area where they run things! When some drunk idiot or a storm knocks over the pole carrying your connection to your house/office, more often than not it's AT&T that your provider contacts to repair things. If they (AT&T) are responsible for maintaining the physical infrastructure that Google is leasing, they should some say in who uses their poles. Other ISP's/carriers do it so Google can to. C'mon Google. Put your big boy pants on and abide by the same rules that your competition follows.
Well if you read the article, you'd see that the city does not want more poles especially when they are existing poles.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
That killed a public WiFi MESH network where I live. These big companies need a big slap.
so google should register with FCC like everyone else
Utility poles are going the way of the dodo in many places in Sweden, even some pretty sparsely populated areas. Buried cables survive harsh weather better, are not as frequently damaged as utility poles are by vehicles etc, so the maintenance costs for the utility companies have gone WAY down, meaning that the long-term costs of trenching are actually lower.
Once again, this is why communication infrastructure should be built with tax dollars, publicly owned and leased to ISPs fairly.
Sure, Google is all up in AT&T's shit now, but the enemy of my enemy is not my friend; don't think for a second that Google won't be in exactly the same position decades from now. We'll be dealing with this monopolistic protectionism and technological stifling as long as the lines are privately owned.
I live in a part of town where the utility wires are buried underground, and there's no alley road behind houses. So there aren't any poles for Google to use. Somehow I don't expect it to be one of the first fiberhoods.
A few years ago, Time Warner used a hammer mole thingy to make a hole underground down the backyards, pushing 2-inch conduit pipe behind it, only digging a small hole every other backyard or so to ensure it was going in the right direction. The most amusing part of this was that they used the bottom half of a coke can to cover the leading end of the pipe to keep dirt out. I'm going to guess that TW won't exactly be going out of their way to offer to let Google share their pipe.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
It's a sad old story I remember living through myself back in the late 1990's and apparently nothing has changed. Back then I was one of the founders of long-gone Nobell Communications which was then in the middle of rolling out the first wireless broadband IP network in Austin. The extent and energy that certain organizations, one of which was SBC (who later bought AT&T, but they were not alone) put into obstructing and doing whatever they could to shut down the effort was something that would make works of fiction pale. Finding locations for infrastructure was one of the most difficult jobs and one solution was to use existing poles in certain areas. SBC pulled the same crap back then when we insisted that we were not a telco or cable company and had no intention of becoming one (we did connect and handle IP broadcasts of live music at a number of clubs during SXSW back then, though). It turned out, however, that many pole easements were owned by Austin Energy, not SBC, and, working with them and the City Council, we ultimately got rights to use those utility poles as well as city owned buildings and rooftops. I also remember that at the time there was a huge amount of city-owned dark fiber available. I no longer live there and don't know what the situation is anymore but I know that there are creative people at Google as well as in Austin with a lot of resources at their disposal and I trust that together they will find a way to jump over that thrashing dinosaur.
If AT&T insists on fighting this, I suspect AT&T will not be happy with Google's next logical move: Offering low cost (or free) TV or phone service to meet the requirement.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
You are assuming that the long term costs are footed by the company themselves. For instance, most places have insurance policies that will pay for damages from storms/weather and the drivers of the vehicles (and/or their insurance companies) pay for it when they are involved. Those prices are SUBSTANTIALLY lower than the costs involved in getting new "right of ways", checking against documented and undocumented subterranean lines (water, sewer, gas, oil, etc.) as well as the costs to actually excavate and bury the lines.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
An easement is a limited right or interest in the land of another entitling the holder to use, privilege or benefit.
Eminent domain is the legal right and procedures for a municipality to take title and possession of private property for public use.
You might be able to get an easement by using eminent domain, but the more normal process is to purchase an easement. Another way is what happens in a subdivision, where the developer defines where the easements are for such things as utility services (wires, fiber optics, water mains, sewer pipes).
They installed the poles to create the infrastructure because at the time, it was cheaper and faster than excavation. Of course, with the rising costs of replacing poles, the unsightliness of them, and the continuing costs of repairing them due to storms and vehicular accidents is causing them to seriously rethink placing them underground.
Substantially more expensive = Roughly 10x.
Austin rarely gets freezing rain weather (that can bring down trees and utility poles). The worst Austin could get would be high winds that could bring down trees (which may topple utility wires). It's cheaper and easier to put up poles than to have to dig. Plus when you need to run new cables (like what Google is doing), it is a lot cheaper to add these. If google had to go and burry new cables throughout the entire city, the costs would be a lot higher.
Its not what it is, its something else.
If only there were a million other cities actively courting Google to bring their service to them.........
I have no idea why Google just walk away if the city doesn't roll out the red carpet.
Austin needs Google a lot more than Google needs Austin.
where?
google already does this. its $120 plus taxes for google fiber TV package
well, denmark covers 16,639 square miles. the united states covers 3.794 million square miles.
do you think maybe these two situations are not comparable?
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
Want to know how scared AT&T is of Google Fiber in Austin? AT&T is now advertizing Uverse with "Gigapower!" Sounds like AT&T has a product to compete with Google's gigabit/s services, doesn't it? Well, no, it's only 300 megabit/s. Fastest residential service available in Austin at the moment, but still under 2/3rds the speed of coming Google. Only reason to call it "gigapower" is to confuse people into thinking it's equivalent to Google's gigabit/s service.
My karma is in a nose dive
As has been defined by the FCC that makes anyone who provides access to the internet a "Telecommunications Service Provider" which would entitle them access to the poles.
"In Re Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service, Report to Congress 101 (April 10, 1998) ("With respect to the provision of pure transmission capacity to Internet service providers or Internet backbone providers, we have concluded that such provision is telecommunications.") "
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
If google had to go and burry new cables throughout the entire city, the costs would be a lot higher.
Not to mention the inconvenience of the people who live/travel along that route. I don't know for sure, but I would guess that a good crew can run cable on poles the length of a few city blocks in an afternoon, maybe a few days. Underground would take many weeks to months of excavation, likely having to reroute traffic and loss of parking for residents, especially in an urban area.
It seems like you're arguing AT&T's point. Why should they give access to a company that doesn't have to comply with telecom regulations if the deal was that they'd give access to other telecoms?
Then what is AT&T's problem? The two exceptions to utility pole access are cable system or telecommunications providers.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
What in the hell are you babbling about? It's copper. Copper underground, copper above ground, copper under water, it's all the same. Transmission efficiency for identical diameter wire is identical, regardless of physical location. In fact, because buried power lines either rest in the ground directly or are run through conduit or are laid on cable trays inside of cable tunnels, heavier gauge wire can be used, since there are no poles being stressed by extra weight. The result is higher efficiency for buried cables, not lower, because it's safe to use heavier wire.
They have cooperate with telecommunication companies. The internet is telecommunications, therefore a fiber ISP is a telecommunications company and they must cooperate.
If you happen to know of some regulation on "telecommunications companies", including any that are completely irrelevant to the issue, which Google does not abide by, please cite that regulation . AT&T and you seem to be assuming that's the case without mentioning anything specific.
I wouldn't be surprised if their were regulations on "entities holding a government charter (monopoly)". Google has no such government granted monopoly, so those regulations don't apply to them. The federal law doesn't say AT&T has to share with monopoly telecommunications companies, it says they have to lease to telecommunications companies in general.
Google is not getting tax breaks for their current buildout. Kevin Lo, head of the Google Fiber rollout, specifically says that's not even a criteria. They are much more interested in gaining access to poles, getting accurate maps of where poles are, and in getting rapid approval of their construction permits.
AT&T, on the other hand, already got over $200 billion in tax breaks to deploy broadband, and didn't. So no, "all this regulation" did not make it more expensive to upgrade their infrastructure. It made it much much cheaper to upgrade their infrastructure, and instead of actually upgrading their infrastructure, as the law said they must, AT&T and their antecedents booked it as profit and paid their executives over a billion dollars in bonuses.
So yeah, let's level the playing field. Let's take $200 billion from AT&T and give it to Google.
Why doesn't Google simply go the Cable franchise route? It's probably cheaper then any other method and who says they can't get a sweet heart deal from Austin to get the franchise
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
The city of Austin doesn't want them to, because its ugly and disruptive, which is why the city government is pushing on AT&T to allow Google to rent pole space from AT&T poles, just as Google is renting pole space from the city's owned utility poles.
Ignore the rural parts which account for most of the area and just focus on the metro areas, and you'll find that the US *STILL* is way behind.
The poles are private, but stand in public space, right? If AT&T does not want to comply with City will, perhaps there is a way to ask payment for the use of public space? A payment high enough to convince them to cooperate, I mean.
There are plenty telecom providers in Texas. Just work with one to get a contract to build the fiber you want; with a signed IRU (Indefeasible right of use) for 99 years.
Please re-rant after you learn a few things to learn about transmission lines, heating effects, insulators, and common materials.
Kid-proof tablet..
Oh look, a condescending asshole.
Fine. s/copper/aluminum/g Happy now?
What I said is perfectly true and applies equally well to aluminum. Heating effects are much easier to deal with underground because sagging is irrelevant and the thermal environment is very predictable. You have much more flexibility in choice of insulator because again, weight is no longer an issue.
In any case, the anonymous coward is still a babbling idiot. Power lines of all sizes are buried in every major city in the US, and they wouldn't be if there was some dramatic difference in transmission efficiency. I was and am speaking of electrical efficiency, but in fact it applies to fiscal efficiency as well. There's a couple of studies linked in this thread that demonstrate that maintenance costs for lines buried in cable tunnels is lower than for overhead wires. So much lower that it pays for the difference in installation costs over the useful life of the wires and then some.
I see the problem as laws haven't kept up with technology. When the original law was written (1978), there were no such things as ISPs.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
In order to apply anti-trust laws there has to be a monopoly. Google has neither a monopoly in fiber nor TV nor telephone. Using existing anti-trust laws would not likely be applicable.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
why would i ignore the rural parts? the original comment started by saying he lived in rural denmark on a farm.
Developed land in the united states is about 3% of the total land, so 113,820 square miles. (6.8 times the total size of denmark)
75% of the population lives in that space. The U.S. population is about 317 million people, so about 237,750,000 people.
denmark's population is about 5,607,000 people.
So if we just use the developed land in the United States, it's 6.8 times the size of denmark and has 42 times the number of people living in it. And it's broken up into separated pieces of developed space that exists in different regulatory and physical environments.
I still don't think they're comparable situations.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
POTS or Coax will not kill anyone. A live power cable will.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Phone and cable TV services are required to do certain things that were considered to be in the public interest. Phone companies were required to put in place special infrastructure for priority emergency calls. TV companies were required to carry local broadcast channels if the channel asked for it. Historically this made sense, when the cable networks were built in the US* they were providing totally different services, so it made sense for them to be subject to different regulations.
However since then techology has changed, you can use the phone over your cable modem using VOIP and you can watch TV over your telco provided internet connection and you can watch TV and use VOIP over your IP based fiber connection. In many cases the VOIP and IPTV services are even bundled with the internet connection.
So you have three groups of companies providing effectively the same services but subject to vastly different regulations. IMO there is a need to decide if those regulations are still in the public interest and if they are deemed to be in the public interest to figure out how to apply them fairly to last mile communication providers who use vastly different infrastructures.
So I would agree with you that the regs need to be reviewed and updated but I also agree with the GP that google seem to want a privilage that is given to telcos and cablecos without taking on the responsibilities that come with being either being a telco or begin a cableco and I could see why existing telcos and cablecos would be rightly pissed off about that.
* Here in the UK things played out a bit differently, our cable companies were also phone companies from the start and ran analog phone pairs alongside the cable TV coax.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register