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AT&T, Comcast Lawsuit Has Nullified a City's Broadband Competition Law (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AT&T and Comcast have convinced a federal judge to nullify an ordinance that was designed to bring more broadband competition to Nashville, Tennessee. The Nashville Metro Council last year passed a "One Touch Make Ready" rule that gives Google Fiber or other new ISPs faster access to utility poles. The ordinance lets a single company make all of the necessary wire adjustments on utility poles itself, instead of having to wait for incumbent providers like AT&T and Comcast to send work crews to move their own wires. AT&T and Comcast sued the metro government in U.S. District Court in Nashville, claiming that federal and local laws preempt the One Touch Make Ready rule. Judge Victoria Roberts agreed with AT&T and Comcast in a ruling issued Tuesday. Google Fiber is offering service in Nashville despite saying last year that it was waiting for access to thousands of utility poles. "We're reviewing [the] court ruling to understand its potential impact on our build in Nashville," a Google spokesperson said this week, according to The Tennessean. "We have made significant progress with new innovative deployment techniques in some areas of the city, but access to poles remains an important issue where underground deployment is not a possibility."
Pass an ordinance that requires the incumbents to respond to request to prepare their poles within (x) time or face penalties of $(y) dollars per hour. If the incumbents tell the city to pack sand, invoke eminent domain and kick their butts to the curb (revoke their semi-monopolies). After all, Google is standing by and ready to fill the need.
Can you tell IANAL?
Ensure right of access to poles for other companies besides the big guys
Local governments set that. Any attempt at what you are purposing is literally the Federal government dictating what goes on what pole at the city level. I'm not sure anyone here could find something that would bring the "Don't tread on me" zealots out faster. No complaint on your proposal, but seriously that would incite a firestorm way larger than the whole "government death panels". Just saying, the uneducated are still a pretty powerful voting block and Comcast/AT&T do pretty much own the main ways those folks tend to get their FoxNe.., er, news.
lack of competition that is the actual issue
You are going to first inform folks why that's important to them, addressing the issue with terms like "competition" only works if folks know to shop around, or that shopping around is actually an option. Think about hospitals. People don't stop to think for a second that, "Oh hey, I can actually shop around for hospitals." ISPs are pretty much same game here, no one really understands why having multiple carriers in an area is a good thing, they just see "INTERNET". NN addresses the problem at the folks who "make" Internet. Now NN isn't a really good fit, but NN versus nothing, I'll take the first one.
Its not NN that is important
You're right, if folks were well informed and understood basic economics then this would be a no fuss issue. HOWEVER, we don't live in that world and addressing that problem is more than likely a multi decade thing and I'll be good and dead by that point, same for you more than likely. I get what you are saying, "trust the consumer..." Problem is that average rate consumer is an idiot and ISPs are really, really, really good at understanding and playing that to their advantage. So all things considered, I'll take the less impossible option to be implemented.