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Comcast Sues Nashville To Halt Rules That Give Google Fiber Faster Access To Utility Poles (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Comcast yesterday sued the Nashville metro government and mayor to stop a new ordinance designed to give Google Fiber faster access to utility poles. Comcast's complaint in U.S. District Court in Nashville (full text) is similar to one already filed by AT&T last month. Both ISPs are trying to invalidate a One Touch Make Ready ordinance that lets new ISPs make all of the necessary wire adjustments on utility poles themselves instead of having to wait for incumbent providers like AT&T and Comcast to send work crews to move their own wires. The ordinance was passed largely to benefit Google Fiber, which is offering service in Nashville but says that it hasn't been able to deploy faster because it is waiting to get access to thousands of poles. Nearly all the Nashville utility poles are owned either by the municipal Nashville Electric Service or AT&T. Because Comcast has wires on many of the poles, it has some control over how quickly Google Fiber can expand its network. When Google Fiber wants to attach wires to a new pole, it needs to wait for ISPs like Comcast to move their wires to make room for Google Fiber's. The Nashville One Touch Make Ready ordinance "permits third parties to move, alter, or rearrange components of Comcast's communications network attached to utility poles without Comcast's consent, authorization, or oversight, and with far less notice than is required by federal law and by an existing Comcast contract with Metro Nashville," Comcast's complaint said. Comcast asked the court to declare the ordinance invalid and permanently enjoin Nashville from enforcing it. The pre-existing Make Ready process "seek[s] to ensure that all providers can share available pole space cooperatively and safely, without interfering with or damaging any provider's equipment or services," Comcast said. The new procedures mandated by Nashville "are so intrusive that, tellingly, Metro Nashville has wholly exempted its own utility pole attachments from the Ordinance's coverage." Even though Google Fiber announced yesterday that it will pause operations and cut 9% of its staff, the ISP said it would continue operations in Nashville.
The world would be such a better place if Comcast wasn't an ISP.
Comcast says they'll do some adjustments. Ooops. They forgot. No wait, they did another pole. No, not that one, the other one. Whups, we were confused, we only thought we sent somebody out. Don't worry, give us another six months!
I am not surprised. I hope the cities realize what's best for their voters and tell Comcast & AT&T to compete fairly or go home.
This is the problem with government controlling access to scarce resources. We have the same problem where I live, but our fiber lines are buried alongside the freeway and only one company was given access to the conduits. Government enforced monopolies are not cool.
This is the second time today I've ask "If not even Google can compete w/ Comcast what chance to mere mortals have?"
From the article: The Nashville One Touch Make Ready ordinance "permits third parties to move, alter, or rearrange components of Comcast’s communications network attached to utility poles without Comcast’s consent, authorization, or oversight, and with far less notice than is required by federal law and by an existing Comcast contract with Metro Nashville,"
Any surprise here?
Nashville could Use It to take over the poles
I can agree that Comcast is suing Nashville because it would allow a 3rd party to just mess with their equipment. IE: Jump a few months down the road when the 3rd party severs a line and has an undefined number of Comcast subscribers without TV and Internet for X number of days. I see why they want to avoid this. But the other part of me knows they just don't want to deal with Competition.
Nashville Electric Service is a fascinating entity. It is technically owned by the Metro Nashville, which is the merger of old Nashville city proper and Davidson County, yet it serves areas outside Nashville. For example, I was on NES despite living in an adjacent county when I lived in the area. I did not know at the time it was owned by the city, with a board appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the metro board (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_Electric_Service). That makes a lot of sense in this context, since the city then technically "owns" all the NES poles in the city as well. The status of AT&T (previously BellSouth, previously AT&T) poles would be debatable, since utility poles are somewhat...odd...assets. They can be owned by the locality outright, owned by the utility outright, owned by the locality but leased by the utility, etc... I'm curious to see how this plays out for the legal aspects, far more than because it involves Google Fiber.
Surely not Concast or AT&T. The last I heard, the city/county/state owns the easement next to the streets.
Obviously Comcast wants to avoid competition, but they also have a legit argument.
It seems the best thing to do would be for the law to establish an appropriate SLA that existing pole tentants should have to conform to and if they don't meet that SLA then the new pole tentant should be allowed to make the changes themselves.
In fact, I would assume that's what current laws do, but perhaps the SLA has too long a window.
They have enough money, pay for your own poles and leave other company's equipment alone. I'd be pissed too if some knuckleheads from google broke something I owned. Maybe the city would be willing to cover all costs of broken equipment, then it'd be okay. Is comcast stalling work on purpose? I don't know, but google does pretty shady shit also.
All you have to do is let the incumbent monopoly move their wires themselves, for the competition, before the independent contractor is scheduled to do it. But, oddly enough, they've been dragging their feet, almost as if they want to hurt their competition. So let them have to do it quickly if they want to do it themselves.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Kinda strange that they have a problem with tiered service in the meatworld.... Maybe tiered service is just bad all around?
There are really no reasons to object to the One touch make ready ordinances (OTMR). The people contractors doing the work have to be approved by all vendors so it can be AT&T workers, Comcast workers, Fishel Industries or who ever. The companies are notified about the moves in advance so the only thing it stops is having one AT&T crew visit a pole do work, then a Comcast crew visit the same pole, move there lines, followed by another crew for who ever and so on for 50,000 or so poles. Basically as it is now, AT&T and TW/Comcast hog up all the pole space leaving no room for anyone. The OTMR is a really much needed regulation that needs to be national.
AT&T and Comcast have both had 20 years, *two* decades, an *entire generation* to roll out their own fiber, but they didn't, because they're a monopoly and fark you, you miserable customer. And during that 20 years, the only thing they had to worry about was making sure our state lawmakers were given enough bribes, whiskey, hookers, and blow to tow the company line.
Then Google Fiber comes to town, and now that they're doing AT&T/Comcast's job better than AT&T/Comcast ever did, suddenly it's DerpCon 1. They know that as a natural monopoly, there is only going to be *one* broadband utility when the dust settles. And they're doing everything in their power (short of actually getting off their ass and running their own fiber) to stop Google.
If you look in the dictionary under "regulatory capture", it has a photograph of Tennessee's legislature. Our elected fuckwits used their usual Underpants Gnomes logic:
1) Block cities/co-ops from competing with AT&T/Comcast
2) ???
3) Vigorous competition and fiber everywhere!
By a complete coincidence, campaign contributions from ISP's increased by a factor of 100x (not 100%, 100 *TIMES*) that year.
If any of the crew from /r/nashville is here, please share our warm feelings about Comcast and Marsha Blackburn...
A quick google search shows nothing about this lawsuit on nbc.com or msnbc.com or nbcnews.com one example. https://www.google.com/search?...
But they are reporting on executives leaving google fiber.
Metro Nashville has wholly exempted its own utility pole attachments from the Ordinance's coverage
This will make it difficult to argue there is no problem with the practice.
If Comcast is so worried about Google touching their junk, why not legislate an aggressive SLA that requires Comcast to respond to Google's requests in a specified period of time, after which Google can go ahead without Comcast's assistance?
Why not just append a reasonable grace period. Call it 30-days for the sake of argument.
Google Fiber requests that Comcast "move, alter, or rearrange" the following cables : blah blah blah.
Once the grace period has elapsed, if the moves have not been completed, Google is free and clear to move them (while assuming all responsibility for damages incurred, obviously)
This signature is false.
Smart by Google. They pulled an Apple. Do whatever they want, let others sue them. Continue doing what they want with the position"let's see how this plays out in court". By the time there's a judgement, 5 years down the road they'll have everything installed.
Since when do we allow big business to act against against what is best for the people? Competition is good.
Comcast is consistently rated one of the most hated companies in America.
I wish I could get at least closer options from ANYONE else.... Just yesterday I received a letter in the mail from comcast. They're throttling my account to 1TB per month or pay an extra $50 per month for unlimited internet.... I ALREADY PAID FOR UNLIMITED INTERNET!! That was the option I selected just 2 years ago when I moved into my house. I already pay $150/mo for basic cable + internet, now the vultures want another $50... I have 3 teens at home plus a VPN for work, I push that cap. We need serious legal reform. It's pathetic the country that invented the internet has the worst service of civilized countries.
What does it matter if the gov't controls the corporations or the corporations control the government?
As long as neither is beholden to the people it goes down the same, bad road fast.
Comcast isn't beholden to the people because they have purchased regulations to destroy the free market.
Politicians aren't beholden to the people because it is the corporations who are the major donors and policy advisors.
It's really a system that's good for everyone but the people.
I just wish we had a free market.
How many cheering this on are in the AirBnB thread cheering on NYC using laws to protect the entrenched interests.
Oh, right. That's different, because Comcast's arguments are transparently self-serving.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
"tellingly, Metro Nashville has wholly exempted its own utility pole attachments from the Ordinance's coverage."
Electric power wiring and communication wiring are not analagous as Comcast is trying to imply.
- there are different consequences to moving them unsafely: different bonding & approval and liability possibilities because it could cause death or damage to third parties
- there is no need to move them. Because of the above, they're on separate sections of the poles.
A world without exclusive municipal contracts with oligarchies...
Change the requirements for access to people's land for cable, including state land, to demand they allow google access and then tell them they have 30 days to agree or remove their cables.
If comcast tries to cry off this as a one-sided change with no compensation, point them to every single customer ToS change they've applied and ask what the difference is.