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