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AT&T and Comcast Finalize Court Victory Over Nashville and Google Fiber (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the done-deal dept.

"AT&T and Comcast have solidified a court victory over the metro government in Nashville, Tennessee, nullifying a rule that was meant to help Google Fiber compete against the incumbent broadband providers," reports Ars Technica. From the report: The case involved Nashville's "One Touch Make Ready" ordinance that was supposed to give Google Fiber and other new ISPs faster access to utility poles. The ordinance let 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. But AT&T and Comcast sued the metro government to eliminate the rule and won a preliminary victory in November when a U.S. District Court judge in Tennessee nullified the rule as it applies to poles owned by AT&T and other private parties.

The next step for AT&T and Comcast was overturning the rule as it applies to poles owned by the municipal Nashville Electric Service (NES), which owns around 80 percent of the Nashville poles. AT&T and Comcast achieved that on Friday with a new ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Aleta Trauger. Nashville's One Touch Make Ready ordinance "is ultra vires and void or voidable as to utility poles owned by Nashville Electric Service because adoption of the Ordinance exceeded Metro Nashville's authority and violated the Metro Charter," the ruling said. Nashville is "permanently enjoined from applying the Ordinance to utility poles owned by Nashville Electric Service." The Nashville government isn't planning to appeal the decision, a spokesperson for Nashville Mayor Megan Barry told Ars today.

10 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Good. Because the rule was bullshit. by youngone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Government should not be playing favorites.

    Maybe Governments should stop subsidizing the incumbents, even when the alternative is cheaper.

    We all hate Google, but the AT&T and Comcast are worse, surely?

  2. Re:Good. Because the rule was bullshit. by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Instead to compete with the incumbents, you become beholden on them if you want to provide service to a new customer (which probably means they will be losing a customer) I'm sure they will pull out all the stops.

    Nashville Electric Service should require that only their contractors can work on wires on their poles, and provide the same SLA's and charge the same fees to all customers.

  3. It would be a shame by bobstreo · · Score: 3, Funny

    If google purchased Nashville Electric Service (and the contractors authorized to work on their power poles, and prioritized AT&T and Comcast installs and repairs accordingly.

    1. Re:It would be a shame by currently_awake · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Google needs to buy the power company (nation wide). The power company owns their own private Right-of-Way to every single house in the country. With ownership of that Google can implement a national fiber to the home network ending in a "Tripple play" box at the house, then rent bandwidth to anyone who wants it. Because Google would only be running a generic data network (not cable or tel) they would be exempt from all the regulations and the monopoly deals the cable and ISP's have made with State/local governments. Without owning the wires Google will always be paying the local ISP for customer data and fighting companies that want to compete with them by excluding them from the market. Owning the wires lets them see all the data (maximize revenue) and prevents the competition from locking them out of the market. Owning the wires is the only SANE long term strategy for Google to follow.

  4. Re:Good. Because the rule was bullshit. by Puls4r · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Really? I don't have any skepticism. Without rules like this, I can tell you exactly how this situation goes:

    Google needs access to a particular pole as no available ground is around for them to put up one of their own. They contact the owner - let's say AT&T. AT&T replies that they have to go through a risk analysis: after all, there's a lot of important stuff on that pole.

    Google hears nothing. In the mean time the clock is running, their investments in other infrastructure that is waiting on this pole are sitting costing money, etc. AT&T never responds, but when Google goes back to them they reply that the risk Assessment is done but they have to pass it through engineering as well.... and the public utility uses the pole already. So Google needs to get clearance from the local utility before AT&T will let them use the pole.

    More weeks go by....... and eventually AT&T strangles any competition that needs access to that pole / tower / etc.

  5. Easy solution by wyattstorch516 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The city directs Nashville Electric to perform all work on the utility poles. Nashville Electric then bills Google for the expense. The work is done properly without some fly by night contractor coming in and breaking other people's stuff.

    Why didn't Google propose this? Maybe they don't want to pay Nashville Electric to hire qualified people to do the work and just wanted to have low paid contractors?

    1. Re:Easy solution by jeff4747 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Because they're still AT&T and Comcast's wires, so Nashville Electric can not move them. This ordinance would allow Nashville electric to do so, but hey, it just got thrown out.

    2. Re:Easy solution by slack_justyb · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Why didn't Google propose this?

      Because that's exactly what they did. Except Google is still the one who does the work. Outside of that one difference, yeah Google and NES worked on an alliance to get the fiber laid without OTMR, but even then AT&T and Comcast have already extended the local appeals process to seven years for make ready work. This is literally why AT&T can't extend into the Comcast only region I'm in. There's a fiber optic end point only 300 feet from where I live and AT&T can't extend it because we're only four out of the seven years into it. Even then, there's been talk to extend the appeals process even more. Pretty much all the local folks who were going to work on the Google fiber project have pretty much conceded that AT&T and Comcast are ready to scorch earth the process just to ensure that people like Google can't make any headway in the future. Shit, they already quake at EPB in Chattanooga. It's clear, neither want a fair market and all the politicians here in the state are more than happy to let them have it. Even if that means that AT&T can't draw that final 300 feet of fiber or the other hundreds of examples like that in the Comcast monopoly zones.

  6. Re:Good. Because the rule was bullshit. by slack_justyb · · Score: 4, Informative

    It basically allowed Google to legally declare open warfare on the incumbent operators

    Except the rule was that whoever touched it had to reimburse the affected by 150%. So if Google did knock out AT&T service, they'd owe AT&T 150% cost lost.

    Government should not be playing favorites

    HA! You should talk to Marsha Blackburn and ask her about her relationship with AT&T.

  7. Re:Yikes! by slack_justyb · · Score: 3, Informative

    If the competitor made errors and there were lawsuits, they would be held harmless and you would take the hit.

    No.