Frontier Teams With AT&T To Block Google Fiber Access To Utility Poles (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Ars Technica: Frontier submitted a court filing last week supporting ATT's efforts to sue local governments in Louisville and Jefferson County, Kentucky to stop a new ordinance designed to give Google Fiber and similar companies access to utility poles. They're concerned the ordinances will spread to other states. Frontier's filing said, "the issues raised by the case may have important implications for Frontier's business and may impact the development of law in jurisdictions throughout the country where Frontier operates." The ordinance in Louisville lets companies like Google Fiber install wires even if ATT doesn't respond to requests or rejects requests to attach lines. Companies don't have to notify ATT when they want to move ATT's wires to make room for their own wires, assuming the work won't cause customer outages. ATT claims that the ordinance lets competitors "seize ATT's property." Frontier is urging the court to consider the nationwide implications of upholding Louisville's ordinance, saying Louisville's rule "is unprecedented" because "it drastically expands the rights of third parties to use privately owned utility poles, giving non-owners unfettered access to [a] utility's property without the [...] utility in some cases even having knowledge that such third-party intrusion on its facilities is occurring." Frontier said companies should be required to negotiation access with the owners if they didn't pay to install the utility poles. They urged the court to deny Louisville Metro's motion to dismiss ATT's complaint.

Comments

Wah wah wah, we don't want competition

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't want Google fiber competing with us and providing cheap internet that is 50x faster. What, do you expect us to actually invest in upgrading ourselves, and even funnier, lowering our prices?

Re:Wah wah wah, we don't want competition

[Opportunist]

Competition! That's so Un-American! We have worked hard, day and night, for years and years to establish a monopoly, should this now all have been in vain? Isn't hard work rewarded anymore?

Re: Wah wah wah, we don't want competition

[Anonymous Coward]

ATT purchased the land on the free market and installed their own poles on it? If that's so, then yeah, I can see this being an unconstitutional seizure of ATT's property if they aren't being paid.

My guess though is that ATT had the government take the property from its previous owners, and is now crying foul when the government is repeating the process.

Re: Wah wah wah, we don't want competition

[ShanghaiBill]

What's un-American is one company thinking it can invite the private property of another company.

These poles are on public property. The city of Louisville gave AT&T the easement to install the poles, and they can set any condition on that easement that is not specifically prohibited in the contract. There is a public benefit to competitive markets, so this is a appropriate action by the government. We don't expect FedEx, UPS, and other delivery companies to each build their own roads. It makes no more sense for each wired utility to install their own poles.

Re: Wah wah wah, we don't want competition

[Opportunist]

No problem. As soon as the government gives me free space, I have zero problem sharing it with you.

Re: Wah wah wah, we don't want competition

[Anonymous Coward]

What's un-American is one company thinking it can (invade) the private property of another company. This is a right of access dispute and a property dispute.

The custom in the US is that all the various utilities share the same poles. If you go back to the early days of electrification, the different companies all ran separate poles and wires. It was a horrible tangle. The pole outside my house has lines for power, phone, and cable. At least three different companies. I don't have three separate sets of poles. I don't know who pays for what. They may not have wanted to share, but they suck it up and share, and it works fine. Why shouldn't they make room for a fourth company?

Re: Wah wah wah, we don't want competition

[lgw]

The company now known as "AT&T" likely had nothing to do with installing these poles. A lot of hard work went into the creation of the original telephone network, and that should be respected. The abuse of customers by Ma Bell overwhelmed that, and they were broken up and lost any right to that legacy. Just because someone re-assembles the monopoly doesn't give them any moral right to that infrastructure - if anything, the reverse.

The "last mile" need to be a set of public utilities nationwide. Cable, phone lines, all of it. Preventing abuse of monopolistic power is a legitimate government power, and that includes natural monopolies.

Re: Wah wah wah, we don't want competition

[Anonymous Coward]

True story: a neighbor's house is set so far back from the road that he has two of his own poles on his property to bring power/telephone to his house.

Cable company wanted to 'tighten up' a circuitous branch on a dead end street behind his place (ultimately a shorter path for their signal to the end of the street rather than its current long-way-around).

They called him, asked for right-of-way, he said "sure, a free subscription will be your rent for as long as the cable is there", they weren't cool; "no deal". "Okay, fine, b'bye".

Days later they showed up, unannounced, started working, told wife to "mind her business" when questioned, wife called him, called cops, called lawyer, called local zoning enforcement, everybody got there, words ensued.

"he has proven he owns the poles, you're trespassing since they asked you to leave their property and you haven't, you proved previous knowledge of this private property when you first asked them for a right of way, LEAVE NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE" says Captain Cop.

Cable lawyers called, "let's be reasonable", "mutual understanding", "thank you but we said no", "you can't impede a public utility", court.

Judge & Bench Decision: "it's their property and their no means no", cable to pay their court costs and lawyer AND trespassing fines AND emotional distress ("mind her business").

Would have been cheaper to swallow one installation, generate goodwill, and have their system improved by the shortcut.

"Negotiating access" cuts both ways

[mrchaotica]

Frontier said companies should be required to negotiation access with the owners if they didn't pay to install the utility poles.

That sounds like a great model to go to... IF Frontier and AT&T then also have to "negotiate access" with all the property owners of the land their poles are on!

Pick an aphorism: Goose/gander, pot/kettle, glass houses, "be careful what you wish for," and all that...

Re:"Negotiating access" cuts both ways

[jishak]

I agree. Most if not all utility poles are on municipal grounds with some sort of easement granted to the company using it. It doesn't make sense to let a common carrier use it and then deny access to a competitor if it is not on their land. I think it is fair to make the competitors pay for a share of the installation and maintenance of the utility poles. I think there is similar precedent in that regards with Cell Phone Towers. I think the pricing should be RAND and standardized.

Well past time...

[Jawnn]

...to move to a public utility model for telecom. Government owns and maintains the right-of-way and the copper/glass. Everybody who wants to gets to buy access to it, be it last mile or peerage

No. Please spare us the tired, "the guvamint will screw it up" argument. It's bullshit. I can show you public utility districts that make their commercial counterparts in the electrical service delivery business look like third-world pretenders. It works as well as it does for one simple reason, the district is beholden to the electorate, not shareholders.

Pole Ownership

[Feneric]

In most districts I've seen the utility companies don't pay any kind of excise tax or ownership tax on "their" poles. Since they're already getting special treatment as these poles are seen as supporting a public utility, they shouldn't be too surprised to see some strings getting attached to this special treatment.

AHEM

[bmo]

Towns and cities have the absolute right to let "third parties use your poles" because your poles exist in the public right-of-ways like along roads, sidewalks, and the municipalities grant you easements over people's property, because they see poles as a public good.

This business of using the public for your private profit and then whining about it when you have to abide by rules made by the public, is poor judgement at best. It's whining. The briefs themselves are subterfuge because they ignore the right of the public to regulate pole use.

So stop lying, Frontier and AT&T and get with the fucking program and let competition on "your" (ours, really) poles.

Dipshits.

--
BMO

Comcast has the opposite complaint

[evilviper]

Funny, I just read Comcast has the opposite complaint. A local power utility was about to rip down Comcast's lines for failing to pay their pole attachment fees, "which would have killed service for about 7,000 Comcast customers."

âoeUnfortunately, the utility has been unwilling to compromise and has billed Comcast for arbitrary pole rates that are nearly three times the national average,â said Horwitz. Comcast claimed [the power company is] using their position as a monopoly to gouge customers with high rates.

If the cognitive dissonance of that last quote doesn't make your head explode, it's a good read:

http://stopthecap.com/2016/06/...