AT&T sues Louisville to stop Google Fiber from using its utility poles

Lawsuit could delay Google construction, give AT&T head start in fiber race.

Read the whole story

 

[Nowicki]

Normally id like to go into detail. And explain why this is not going to work or show a meme but this time ill just say

Fuck you AT&T!

 

[tcowher]

Alternatively the city could just eminent domain the poles then start charging all users a maintenance fee and be a 3rd party approver for the work done on the lines.

I betting though this isn't the case of messing with lines outside of the rare situation in witch a line might need moved off a support then returned as necessary for mounting new lines.

I also see it as a way to force incumbents to provide "reasonable" access to the lines themselves. Otherwise I can see competitors requests being placed as low priority or being denied for trivial reasons. Or other internal roadblocks being placed to prevent competition.

 

[Uxorious]

But with AT&T planning its own fiber deployment in Louisville, it could get a head start on Google if the lawsuit delays its rival's progress.

My prediction is that AT&T fiber deployment plans for Louisville were created about 5 minutes after the Louisville / Jefferson County Metro Government's ordinance was published...

 

[Eurynom0s]

Are they actually AT&T's poles, or are they Louisville's/Kentucky's and AT&T is saying they have some sort of exclusive right to use them?

 

[David Crowell]

As a Louisville resident, I can say that AT&T would already have a number of gigabit fiber customers, if they had bothered to offer it.

I live in the city center, and AT&T's offer here is really bad, and not fiber. I'll stick with Time Warner (ugh) until something better comes along.

Screw you, AT&T. You could have offered fiber years ago.

 

[truthyboy15]

David Crowell[/url]":1v1c224t]As a Louisville resident, I can say that AT&T would already have a number of gigabit fiber customers, if they had bothered to offer it.

I live in the city center, and AT&T's offer here is really bad, and not fiber. I'll stick with Time Warner (ugh) until something better comes along.

Screw you, AT&T. You could have offered fiber years ago.

incumbents rarely offer new services unless someone comes along and knocks them off their feet.

 

[David Crowell]

Eurynom0s[/url]":yobms8n7]Are they actually AT&T's poles, or are they Louisville's/Kentucky's and AT&T is saying they have some sort of exclusive right to use them?

I have no idea who owns the poles. If AT&T does own them, the cost was subsidized by the federal gov with incentive to build-out, and the city with their "approved monopoly" crap of a few decades ago.

Time Warner has stuff on poles. Power lines are on poles. AT&T uses poles. I think who originally paid for them is now a moot point.

 

[jbrodkin]

David Crowell[/url]":31dwyst7]

Eurynom0s[/url]":31dwyst7]Are they actually AT&T's poles, or are they Louisville's/Kentucky's and AT&T is saying they have some sort of exclusive right to use them?

I have no idea who owns the poles.

come on guys, read the story! "Most of the poles used by AT&T in the area are owned by AT&T or Louisville Gas & Electric. AT&T said it has had a contract with the utility for the joint use of utility poles since 1917."

 

[h4ng0ver]

Eurynom0s[/url]":2v7hudst]Are they actually AT&T's poles, or are they Louisville's/Kentucky's and AT&T is saying they have some sort of exclusive right to use them?

Did you read the article?

 

[regdoug]

I can see the benefit of having a single crew move wires that need to be moved, but as an engineer, I would absolutely not want someone touching my equipment without my authorization. It's frightening what ignorance can accomplish.

 

[Eurynom0s]

jbrodkin[/url]"xqvw8g5]

David Crowell[/url]"xqvw8g5]

Eurynom0s[/url]"xqvw8g5]Are they actually AT&T's poles, or are they Louisville's/Kentucky's and AT&T is saying they have some sort of exclusive right to use them?

I have no idea who owns the poles.

come on guys, read the story! "Most of the poles used by AT&T in the area are owned by AT&T or Louisville Gas & Electric. AT&T said it has had a contract with the utility for the joint use of utility poles since 1917."

What makes it worse is I actually did look through the article trying to spot the information before asking. A failure of skimming.

 

[RickyP784]

Fortunately, I live just down the road in Lexington, and Windstream has been surprisingly ahead of the curve deploying fiber to the node. We're one of the few places in the country where we can get up to 50 Mbps from more than one provider (TWC and Windstream).

Don't get me wrong, I'd drop the phone company in a New York minute if Google Fiber came to town, but all things considered, we're not that bad off...and at least we don't have to contend with AT&T-1000.

 

[Infinity4011]

Nilt[/url]":nqukrjr1]I haven't worked with actual poles myself, but I've worked for years in areas of IT where telecom wiring is crucial. I've often seen intermittent issues and even outright outages caused by someone moving or just fiddling with wiring in a cross connect closet that goes to a client office. I can only imagine how much worse it would be were they allowed to just relocate equipment and wiring. It's rare, but I'm sort of with AT&T in this one. If the law in question required at least documentation and notice, that may be one thing, but without prior notice and documentation this is a disaster waiting to happen.

I'm a utility lineman. We move lines all the time, and no one notices. Sometimes, we try to alert the telecoms who leave their shit dangling haphazardly from our poles that it needs to get fixed and they don't bother. So we rip it from the pole and leave it on the ground for someone to steal.

The first time a telecom complained, we basically said "you either maintain your equipment on our poles, or we tear it ALL down. The safety of our electrical grid goes beyond your need to save a buck." Now they just come behind us and rehang their shit properly (or we tear it down again.)

The difference between something in a cabinet in an office, and something in the field, is that the stuff on the pole has very few connections, and is designed to be rugged. Most of them are powered directly off the AC line itself and are just signal boosters/amplifiers to prevent attenuation. There's enough slack in the wiring to move the stuff up or down a foot or two without problem.

Our agreement with the area telecoms is basically "you can use our poles, but if you need to tap the grid for new boxes you have to notify us. Otherwise do what you need to." They also have to notify the landowners who own the land we have our right-of-ways on, that they may have to come out and access the poles, and such. They also have to work with the cities, but that's a different can of worms.

 

[Infinity4011]

David Crowell[/url]":1m956qla]

h4ng0ver[/url]":1m956qla]

Eurynom0s[/url]":1m956qla]Are they actually AT&T's poles, or are they Louisville's/Kentucky's and AT&T is saying they have some sort of exclusive right to use them?

Did you read the article?

I'll admit I didn't read that article. I read three others (I live in Louisville), but none of those answered the question of ownership.

Still... government sanctioned monopolies and federally funded infrastructure should mean that others can use the poles.

AT&T isn't necessarily protesting that Google can't use the poles, they just want Google to ask, and for Google to wait while AT&T moves all of their stuff before Google can do their installs. They are basically saying "you have to wait until we do our own fiber installs and run all of our own lines down the poles, and maybe we'll make enough room for you while we're at it."

The ordinance AT&T is fighting allows a contractor to come in and do it all in one pass. Move AT&T (and whoever else) equipment and hang Google's in one go.

 

[jonah]

Infinity4011[/url]":3g5ynmh7]

Nilt[/url]":3g5ynmh7]I haven't worked with actual poles myself, but I've worked for years in areas of IT where telecom wiring is crucial. I've often seen intermittent issues and even outright outages caused by someone moving or just fiddling with wiring in a cross connect closet that goes to a client office. I can only imagine how much worse it would be were they allowed to just relocate equipment and wiring. It's rare, but I'm sort of with AT&T in this one. If the law in question required at least documentation and notice, that may be one thing, but without prior notice and documentation this is a disaster waiting to happen.

I'm a utility lineman. We move lines all the time, and no one notices. Sometimes, we try to alert the telecoms who leave their shit dangling haphazardly from our poles that it needs to get fixed and they don't bother. So we rip it from the pole and leave it on the ground for someone to steal.

The first time a telecom complained, we basically said "you either maintain your equipment on our poles, or we tear it ALL down. The safety of our electrical grid goes beyond your need to save a buck." Now they just come behind us and rehang their shit properly (or we tear it down again.)

The difference between something in a cabinet in an office, and something in the field, is that the stuff on the pole has very few connections, and is designed to be rugged. Most of them are powered directly off the AC line itself and are just signal boosters/amplifiers to prevent attenuation. There's enough slack in the wiring to move the stuff up or down a foot or two without problem.

Our agreement with the area telecoms is basically "you can use our poles, but if you need to tap the grid for new boxes you have to notify us. Otherwise do what you need to." They also have to notify the landowners who own the land we have our right-of-ways on, that they may have to come out and access the poles, and such. They also have to work with the cities, but that's a different can of worms.

Promote this. Fantastic information.

As long as the work is done properly, qualified linemen should be able to move whatever needs moving.

 

[jeff234]

DaveSimmons[/url]":2ymqnmxx]I hate AT&T as much as the next guy but it's a fair point that Google shouldn't be allowed to mess with AT&T equipment without supervision.

Actually AT&T built a lot of it's infrastructure using Federal Money so Google should be able to use them

 

[truthyboy15]

Infinity4011[/url]":3gd4la67]

David Crowell[/url]":3gd4la67]

h4ng0ver[/url]":3gd4la67]

Eurynom0s[/url]":3gd4la67]Are they actually AT&T's poles, or are they Louisville's/Kentucky's and AT&T is saying they have some sort of exclusive right to use them?

Did you read the article?

I'll admit I didn't read that article. I read three others (I live in Louisville), but none of those answered the question of ownership.

Still... government sanctioned monopolies and federally funded infrastructure should mean that others can use the poles.

AT&T isn't necessarily protesting that Google can't use the poles, they just want Google to ask, and for Google to wait while AT&T moves all of their stuff before Google can do their installs. They are basically saying "you have to wait until we do our own fiber installs and run all of our own lines down the poles, and maybe we'll make enough room for you while we're at it."

The ordinance AT&T is fighting allows a contractor to come in and do it all in one pass. Move AT&T (and whoever else) equipment and hang Google's in one go.

When Verizon was rolling FiOS out in our area they didn't have to get Comcast's permission to use the poles.

 

[ScooterComputer]

Infinity4011[/url]":1yxg6get]I'm a utility lineman. We move lines all the time, and no one notices. Sometimes, we try to alert the telecoms who leave their shit dangling haphazardly from our poles that it needs to get fixed and they don't bother. So we rip it from the pole and leave it on the ground for someone to steal.

The first time a telecom complained, we basically said "you either maintain your equipment on our poles, or we tear it ALL down. The safety of our electrical grid goes beyond your need to save a buck." Now they just come behind us and rehang their shit properly (or we tear it down again.)

Considering the amount of folks asking about the poles (who owns, etc), I'm also wondering what the status of AT&T's pole maintenance is, how "clean" they were in their pole usage. What's the chances that the incumbent provider (AT&T) really just didn't GAF when it came to poles because THEY "OWNED THEM"—well, they DIDN'T, but nobody else was allowed to hang on them, so what was the difference? Now that the time has come for other providers to share the poles, they throw up all these excuses, when really the problem is the incumbents had been hanging like messy pricks all along. Is this just an ass-covering move to deflect their decades of shoddy workmanship and corner cutting?

 

[SynthiaVice]

Oh no! Someone's offering a better service than we do using our infrastructure! We can't have that! Let's tie them up in court with a frivolous lawsuit. /s

Most of the infrastructure was built using federal money, therefore AT&T doesn't own anything, it's the equivalent of a gorilla beating its chest and hollering when a rival comes close to his turf.

 

[arkiel]

AT&T doesn't see that as a good thing. The telco's lawsuit argues that the ordinance allows companies to "temporarily seize AT&T’s property, and to alter or relocate AT&T’s property, without AT&T’s consent and, in most circumstances, without prior notice to AT&T." Most of the poles used by AT&T in the area are owned by AT&T or Louisville Gas & Electric. AT&T said it has had a contract with the utility for the joint use of utility poles since 1917.

Wow, did somebody's nephew just graduate from law school?

Sounds like Louisville Gas & Electric needs to kill that contract.

 

[StillGridlocked]

Eurynom0s[/url]":ls5ctr0q]Are they actually AT&T's poles, or are they Louisville's/Kentucky's and AT&T is saying they have some sort of exclusive right to use them?

Usually poles belong to the local telco and the local electric utility.

The local telco always has the lowest wires on any pole so when a competitor moves in the telco wires have to be dropped. Its likely the local cable co wires will have to be dropped lower also so Google will end up just below the electric lines.

 

[fishbait]

don't innovate litigate, dont do the work up on the perch, we'll just be a jerk and send the judge some perks.

dont do things clean or we'll be mean, just guess and make a mess
XD i couldnt resist!

 

[gerbintosh]

It would be so awesome if the courts would state that AT&T can't expand their fiber network while Google is not allowed to expand theirs due to the lawsuit. You know, due to the fact that having Google delay their roll out could be anti-competitive and favor AT&T.

Sigh, I can dream.

 

[apoplectic]

Clearly the obvious answer is more poles for each provider. Very stylish.

AT&T cares about only obstructing, or delaying any other competitor's progress, until at least the lobbyists can do their job of promoting AT&T's agenda. Right, or wrong has nothing to do with it. It is well documented that AT&T and Vzw have no interest in maintaining copper, nor installing fiber with competitors. So from my perspective, this lawsuit makes perfect sense for a greedy predator such as AT&T.

 

[soulsabr]

Oh my GOD! COMPETITION! Smithers; release the kracken ... lawyers.

 

[truthyboy15]

gerbintosh[/url]":m7z4o4k2]It would be so awesome if the courts would state that AT&T can't expand their fiber network while Google is not allowed to expand theirs due to the lawsuit. You know, due to the fact that having Google delay their roll out could be anti-competitive and favor AT&T.

Sigh, I can dream.

They could always go the FCC route.

 

[dlux]

apoplectic[/url]":3td901g9]Clearly the obvious answer is more poles for each provider.

That will only lead to even more questions about who owns them.

 

[Boskone]

Heh. The city should mandate buried lines...then increase pole costs to subsidize the work.

"Well, we were going to just hang it, but that proved impractical."

 

[orangpelupa]

In my city, one pole spot is filled by 2-3 poles from different private companies and government companies lol.

Very untidy and looks redundant.

Edit:,
,
Look they even lean to each other. Aww

 

[Spazzles]

Infinity4011[/url]":3gphncow]

Nilt[/url]":3gphncow]I haven't worked with actual poles myself, but I've worked for years in areas of IT where telecom wiring is crucial. I've often seen intermittent issues and even outright outages caused by someone moving or just fiddling with wiring in a cross connect closet that goes to a client office. I can only imagine how much worse it would be were they allowed to just relocate equipment and wiring. It's rare, but I'm sort of with AT&T in this one. If the law in question required at least documentation and notice, that may be one thing, but without prior notice and documentation this is a disaster waiting to happen.

I'm a utility lineman. We move lines all the time, and no one notices. Sometimes, we try to alert the telecoms who leave their shit dangling haphazardly from our poles that it needs to get fixed and they don't bother. So we rip it from the pole and leave it on the ground for someone to steal.

The first time a telecom complained, we basically said "you either maintain your equipment on our poles, or we tear it ALL down. The safety of our electrical grid goes beyond your need to save a buck." Now they just come behind us and rehang their shit properly (or we tear it down again.)

The difference between something in a cabinet in an office, and something in the field, is that the stuff on the pole has very few connections, and is designed to be rugged. Most of them are powered directly off the AC line itself and are just signal boosters/amplifiers to prevent attenuation. There's enough slack in the wiring to move the stuff up or down a foot or two without problem.

Our agreement with the area telecoms is basically "you can use our poles, but if you need to tap the grid for new boxes you have to notify us. Otherwise do what you need to." They also have to notify the landowners who own the land we have our right-of-ways on, that they may have to come out and access the poles, and such. They also have to work with the cities, but that's a different can of worms.

Do you work for a municipal utility? I live in a rural California city that has a truly excellent municipal power company who actually installed and owns most of the poles in the area, and they likewise tolerate exactly zero bullshit on their poles. I'm curious if this is the kind of behavior that follows municipal utilities, or if some utility companies are more stringent about this stuff than others.

 

[Dputiger]

I lived in Louisville for a number of years. I was glad to move out of state in 2011 since AT&T had just announced it would begin implementing bandwidth caps for DSL subscribers unless they shelled out more money for an AT&T Uverse plan. I don't know if the caps ever actually rolled out, but they were serious enough about it to send notices -- and I was happy to be leaving their tender service and attention.

 

[Fatesrider]

Uxorious[/url]":31xi6iy2]

But with AT&T planning its own fiber deployment in Louisville, it could get a head start on Google if the lawsuit delays its rival's progress.

My prediction is that AT&T fiber deployment plans for Louisville were created about 5 minutes after the Louisville / Jefferson County Metro Government's ordinance was published...

And the lawsuit was simply to prevent the AT&T customers they do have from going to Google.

Apparently competition to AT&T means suing the crap out of anyone who tries to bring in something the company had no previously announced plans to do themselves. It's a bad day in the world when lawsuits stop legal competition, but I'm inclined to think the FCC will not look favorably upon this and rule that utility poles are to be shared as "common carrier" property.

AT&T may be able to wrangle some rent or a one-off access fee per pole, but I don't see them being able to shut down Google's move into the city with a better service than AT&T ever offered.

 

[+Griz]

orangpelupa[/url]":9vp7r5pd]In my city, one pole spot is filled by 2-3 poles from different private companies and government companies lol.

Very untidy and looks redundant.

there's one of those next to my apartment but I think it's like that because of a quick repair job. there used to be one pole, then it fell over and my internet was out for two days until they installed an angled pole that looks like it's supporting the original one.

 

[tkioz]

Oh wow... So much for the 'free' market huh? Competitor wants in, time to scream about it and ask for government protection... Guess they only like capitalism when they've got a monopoly.