AT&T and Comcast lawsuit has nullified Nashville, TN. broadband competition law

#ATT 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 #GoogleFiber 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 @ATT and @Comcast to send work crews to move their own wires. AT&T and Comcast sued the metro government in US 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." AT&T poles The case centered on two sets of utility poles: those owned by AT&T and those owned by the municipal Nashville Electric Service (NES). The Nashville ordinance is preempted by federal law when it comes to poles owned by AT&T and other private parties, the judge ruled. The Federal Communications Commission has jurisdiction to regulate pole attachments for privately owned poles except when states opt out of the federal regime. "Tennessee has not opted out of FCC jurisdiction over pole attachments," Judge Roberts wrote. In August, a similar One Touch Make Ready rule in Louisville, Kentucky, survived despite another AT&T lawsuit. Kentucky is one of 20 states that has opted out of the federal pole attachment regime, giving Louisville a leg up over AT&T in that case. Utility-owned poles While AT&T owns nearly 20 percent of the poles, the NES utility owns around 80 percent. AT&T and Comcast argued that NES has sole authority to regulate the terms of pole attachments for NES-owned poles and that the Metro Nashville Council therefore overstepped its authority. The court agreed with AT&T and Comcast's argument, saying, "It is clear that the [Metro Nashville] Charter grants NES broad, unencumbered power to manage and control the properties of the Electric Power Board. It expressly denies that power to the Mayor, the Council, and any other agency of the Metro Nashville government." The court declined to make a final ruling on NES-owned poles, but AT&T and Comcast could get what they want soon. Nashville Metro argued that the claim should be dismissed because NES failed to join the case despite being an "indispensable party." But the judge is letting AT&T and Comcast amend their complaints in order to add NES as a party in the case. NES previously told the court that it is "agnostic to the validity of the ordinance." Unless NES changes course, a ruling would be automatically entered in favor of AT&T and Comcast. NES will be asked to make a statement on whether it intends to take a position. "If it continues to have no position, the Court will enter the declaration and injunction sought by Plaintiffs," the judge wrote. Nashville Metro could appeal the ruling, but hasn't said whether it will do so. "We are reviewing the court's decision and will make a determination regarding our next course of action in the near future," Jon Cooper, Nashville Mayor Megan Barry's law director, told The Tennessean. View article comments

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/att-and-comcast-win-lawsuit-they-filed-to-stall-google-fiber-in-nashville/?amp=1

Google Fiber Eyes A Bigger Chunk of The Airwaves

#GOOGLEFIBER WANTS A better way of beaming the Internet into apartment buildings. On Friday, the company filed a document with the Federal Communications Commission arguing that the agency should ease access to a chunk of wireless spectrum that could serve the ambitions of #Google Fiber, the company’s ultra-high-speed Internet service. The spectrum in question—the 70/80 Ghz band—is used by #Webpass, the San Francisco broadband company now owned by Google Fiber (the acquisition closed today). Webpass uses this band to beam an Internet signal to the roofs of apartment buildings and condos, before stringing cables into living rooms. Google wants FCC rules that would allow it to use such technology on a much larger scale. Google Fiber is as a separate company under the umbrella operation called #Alphabet, and according to some reports it is under pressure to cut costs—even as iexpands its high-speed Internet service and pushes entrenched companies like #Verizon and #AT&T toward similar services. A faster Internet is good for Google. Of course, it’s good for everyone. That’s why the progress of Google Fiber is worth watching.

https://www.wired.com/2016/10/google-fiber-eyes-expansion-across-airwaves/

AT&T sues Nashville over Google Fiber 'One Touch' law

#ATT on Thursday sued Metro government over the new "One Touch Make Ready" ordinance aimed at helping #GoogleFiber expand its gigabit internet to Nashville, setting the stage for the next battlefront in the city's fight over broadband.

In the company's complaint, AT&T argues that under federal law the Federal Communications Commission, not local municipalities like Metro, have jurisdiction to regulate privately owned utility poles. In Nashville, 80 percent of the city's utility poles are owned by #Nashville Electric Service, while AT&T owns the remaining 20 percent.
AT&T is seeking a declaratory and permanent injunction from the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee to stop Metro from enforcing the new law.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2016/09/22/att-sues-nashville-over-google-fiber-one-touch-law/90852632/

Google Fiber wins vote in Nashville—next step, AT&T to sue city

The #Nashville Metro Council last night gave its final approval to an ordinance designed to help #GoogleFiber accelerate deployment of high-speed Internet in the Tennessee city, despite #ATT and #Comcast lobbying against the measure. Google Fiber's path isn't clear, however, as AT&T said weeks ago that it would likely sue Nashville if it passes the ordinance. AT&T has already sued Louisville, Kentucky over a similar ordinance designed to help Google Fiber. The Nashville Council vote approved a "One Touch Make Ready" ordinance that gives Google Fiber or other ISPs quicker 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. One Council member who opposed the ordinance asked AT&T and Comcast to put forth an alternative plan, but the council stuck with the original One Touch Make Ready proposal.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/09/att-comcast-fail-in-latest-effort-to-stall-google-fiber-in-nashville/

Nashville Council Member Admits AT&T & Comcast Wrote The Anti-Google Fiber Bill She Submitted

We've been talking about how the next great battlefield in broadband is utility pole attachment reform. In many cities, the incumbent broadband provider owns the utility poles, giving them a perfect opportunity to hinder competitors. In other cities, the local utility or city itself owns the poles, but incumbent ISPs have lobbied for laws making it more difficult for competitors to access them quickly and inexpensively. #GoogleFiber has been pushing "one touch make ready" rules in several cities aimed at streamlining this bureaucracy by letting a licensed, third-party installer move any ISP's gear (often a matter of inches). And while incumbents like #AT&T and #Comcast will often breathlessly proclaim they're all for streamlining regulations, in this instance they're actively preventing the streamlining of these rules in a feeble attempt to slow Google Fiber down. In Louisville, AT&T sued the city after it passed one touch make ready rules. And in Nashville, both Comcast and AT&T have been actively working to prevent Google Fiber from getting similar rules passed. In a recent blog post explaining the stand off, Google Fiber highlights just what this entrenched, anti-competitive regulatory capture looks like in graphical form:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160920/05053535567/nashville-council-member-admits-att-comcast-wrote-anti-google-fiber-bill-she-submitted.shtml

Alphabet is putting serious pressure on Google Fiber to cut costs

#Google parent company #Alphabet is shaking things up at its gigabit internet division, according to a report today from The Information. The unit, previously known as #GoogleFiber and now called Access, is shifting its focus to wireless technology, and not ultra-fast internet delivered through fiber-optic cables. More pressing, however, is a demand issued by Alphabet CEO Larry Page to reduce customer acquisition costs to one tenth their current level while asking Fiber chief Craig Barratt to cut the unit’s workforce in half, from 1,000 people to 500. The changes represent a rift at Alphabet over how it handles what were once Google’s most ambitious projects. Some of these ideas, like the self-driving car project, have commanded immense resource investment because they represent the company’s grandest ideas for the future. Yet Page and co-founder Sergey Brin spun out some of those projects from Google itself when it restructured as Alphabet last August, including Fiber, anti-aging biotech division Calico, and smart appliance maker Nest. The restructuring has created a heightened focus on those units and how much money they’re spending on the long road to profitability.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/25/12652734/google-fiber-access-alphabet-layoffs-wireless-internet

AT&T: Nashville should expect a lawsuit if Google Fiber bill passes

It’s been no secret that a lawsuit from #AT&T against Metro is a possibility if Nashville approves a One Touch Made Ready ordinance backed by #GoogleFiber. But on Thursday, addressing reporters at a news conference from the lobby of the downtown AT&T building, Joelle Phillips, president of AT&T Tennessee, came close to guaranteeing a lawsuit if the bill passes.

But on Thursday, addressing reporters at a news conference from the lobby of the downtown AT&T building, Joelle Phillips, president of AT&T Tennessee, came close to guaranteeing a lawsuit if the bill passes.

Jae S. Lee / The Tennessean

“The short answer is the One Touch Make Ready proposal Google has offered is a proposal that we expect would result in litigation,” said Phillips, who was speaking to reporters one dayafter negotiations between Google Fiber, Comcast and AT&T hit a snag.
AT&T sued Louisville, Ky. after that municipality approved a similar One Touch Make Ready ordinance. The company has argued that the Federal Communications Commission – not cities – have the power to regulate privately-owned AT&T utility poles. From the beginning, the company has said Nashville lacks the authority to implement the ordinance Google Fiber covets.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2016/08/25/t-nashville-should-expect-lawsuit-if-google-fiber-bill-passes/89366718/

Google’s High-Speed Web Plans Hit Snags

#Google parent #Alphabet Inc. is rethinking its high-speed internet business after initial rollouts proved more expensive and time consuming than anticipated, a stark contrast to the fanfare that greeted its launch six years ago. Alphabet’s internet provider, #GoogleFiber, has spent hundreds of millions dollars digging up streets and laying fiber-optic cables in a handful of cities to offer web connections roughly 30 times faster than the U.S. average. Now the company is hoping to use wireless technology to connect homes, rather than cables, in about a dozen new metro areas, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas, according to people familiar with the company’s plans. As a result Alphabet has suspended projects in San Jose, Calif., and Portland, Ore.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/googles-high-speed-web-plans-hit-snags-1471193165

Google Eyes Blazing-Fast Wireless as a Way Into Your Home

IN THE FUTURE, we’ll all need a faster connection to the Internet. We’ll need more bandwidth for streaming high-definition video, strolling through virtual worlds, and, well, doing things no one has even thought of yet. But #Google worries that Internet service providers won’t give us all the bandwidth we’ll need. So it’s taking matters into its own hands. Several years ago, it unveiled #GoogleFiber, providing ultra-high-speed Internet connections to home and businesses in certain select cities. This redefined notions of how fast our Internet speeds should be, and in some cases, it significantly increased competition among service providers. But Google has been slow to push the service into new places. And the fact of the matter is that most people are still stuck with much slower connections. So, in order to accelerate this revolution, Google is turning to wireless technologies. Today, the fastest Internet connections arrive via wire line. Your home connection is faster than the connection to your mobile phone. But Google is exploring a different breed of wireless that could provide a way of more rapidly pushing high-speed connections into homes and offices across the country

http://www.wired.com/2016/08/google-wireless-faster-route-home/

Charter, Comcast, AT&T Really Want To Stall Chance Of Competition From Google Fiber

Consumers really like #GoogleFiber. Or, at the very least, they like the idea of Google Fiber: when the company says it’s considering bringing its super-speedy internet service to town, prospective subscribers happily sign up and towns do what they need to do to make themselves attractive to the business. And that sits very, very poorly with the companies that are already in town and don’t want to deal with a pesky thing like competition. That’s what’s happening this week in two different cities, Louisville and Nashville. The companies fighting, and the tactics they’re using, are different, but the overall outcome is the same. In Louisville, it’s #Charter doing the complaining, as the Louisville Courier-Journal reports. Charter is telling the city that it’s unfair that they are being held to different standards, in a different franchise agreement, than Google Fiber. In a letter to the city, Charter wrote that there is “no justification for different regulatory treatment,” and claimed that they were trying to advance consumers’ best interests. “Consumers win when they have a fair choice of service providers,” a spokesperson told the paper. “That’s why Louisville Metro and the area’s suburban cities should make sure all like service providers are treated the same.” Charter is not the first provider to claim that Louisville treats the area’s broadband siblings too differently. #AT&T filed a suit against the city of Louisville back in February, Google, meanwhile, has not yet formally said whether or not it will bring Fiber to the area at all. The city is still on a shortlist of “potential” cities, in which Google is “working with city leaders to explore the possibility of building a super fast network” in the area.

Nashville, on the other hand, does actually have its Google Fiber rollout in progress, with construction underway. And the incumbents are fighting there, too.

Over in Tennessee, it’s Comcast, not Charter, that’s raising objections, and AT&T once again keeping them company.

Nashville is considering the same kind of pole access regulations that Louisville passed, and the incumbents aren’t happy. And as DSL Reports, well, reports, they’re trying basically everything.

AT&T told the site that it’s concerned that the proposed new ordinance — which they have not seen — would interfere with their agreement with their union workers.

Additionally, the AT&T representative said, “We have serious concerns with other companies being allowed to perform work on our facilities,” and then deferred to the FCC claiming it, not local government, has authority.

Comcast didn’t make the same excuses, but did suggest that the legislation would be better off not seeing the light of day anytime soon, or perhaps ever. “We believe that the appropriate next step would be to conduct a meeting of stakeholders, a representative told DSL Reports, adding, “this should be accomplished prior to any proposed legislation.”

As we’ve seen over and over again, high-speed broadband competition is hard to come by in huge swaths of the country. And one reason for that is because incumbent companies, especially AT&T, have a habit of throwing their weight around when competition does finally (try to) come to town.

Meanwhile, though, it remains the best chance for consumers: both Comcast andAT&T charge less for their service in cities with Google’s super-speedy competition.

https://consumerist.com/2016/08/02/charter-comcast-att-really-want-to-stall-chance-of-competition-from-google-fiber/

Google Blew Nearly $1 Billion on 'Moonshot' Ideas Last Quarter

The audacious "other bets" being tested by #Google cost nearly one billion dollars last quarter, according to earnings released on Thursday.

Google lumps projects from its "X" lab, along with the life science-oriented Verily, #Nest and #GoogleFiber, into the "other bets" category in its earnings report.

The projects cost #Alphabet $859 million for the quarter ending June 30. That's up from $660 million for the same period last year.

http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/google-blew-nearly-1-billion-moonshot-ideas-last-quarter-n619716

Google Fiber is buying high-speed internet provider Webpass to expand its reach in cities

To take on the big internet service providers, #GoogleFiber is scooping up a small one.

On Wednesday, Google Fiber announced plans to acquire #Webpass, a high-speed, fiber internet provider serving five cities. The deal, should regulators approve it, would be the first acquisition for the broadband unit under #Alphabet and another signal of its ambition to become a competitive national playerin the industry.

http://www.recode.net/2016/6/22/12009040/google-fiber-buys-webpass-high-speed-city-internet