first published week of: 09/26/2016
Google Fiber's quick access to utility poles threatened by lawsuit.
AT&T has sued Nashville to stop a new ordinance designed to accelerate the deployment of Google Fiber.
The lawsuit (PDF) was filed in US District Court in Nashville yesterday, only two days after the Nashville Metro Council passed a “One Touch Make Ready” rule that gives 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. Google Fiber says it is waiting on AT&T and Comcast to move wires on nearly 8,000 poles.
AT&T’s lawsuit claims that the ordinance is preempted by Federal Communications Commission pole attachment regulations and violates AT&T’s 58-year-old pole attachment contract with Nashville. The company seeks a declaration that the ordinance is unlawful and a permanent injunction preventing the local government from enforcing it.
The Nashville ordinance lets companies “temporarily seize AT&T’s property, and... alter or relocate AT&T’s property, without AT&T’s consent and with little notice,” AT&T argued. “AT&T would be deprived of an adequate opportunity to assess the potential for network disruption caused by the alteration or relocation, and to specify and oversee the work on AT&T’s own facilities to ensure any potential for harm to its network, including harm to the continuity and quality of service to its customers, is minimized.”
Google Fiber or other ISPs would have to provide only 15 days' notice before moving wires, or 30 days if the work would “reasonably be expected to cause a customer outage,” AT&T said. But that conflicts with FCC regulations, which gives companies like AT&T 60 days to modify wires to accommodate a new ISP, AT&T argues. continued…