“It allows broadband providers to rearrange or move another providers’ equipment on a utility pole”, WDRB’s Danielle Lama said. But now those efforts might have hit a snag as AT&T slaps the local government with a big lawsuit. Interestingly enough, their lawsuit isn’t against Google, but the city of Louisville. The rollout would have been held up for a few months, had the Louisville Metro Council not passed an ordinance that shortened the time needed for a competitive internet service to access the city’s utility poles.
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“Louisville Metro Council’s recently passed “One Touch Make Ready” Ordinance is invalid, as the city has no jurisdiction under federal or state law to regulate pole attachments”, AT&T said in a statement to the media.
AT&T has asked a federal judge to clarify that the authority to regulate poles is reserved to the Kentucky Public Service Commission and the FCC in an 11-page suit.
The people of Louisville, Kentucky have no doubt been excited at the prospect of getting Google Fiber in their city.
Google hinted at why it made a decision to use existing fiber in San Francisco, rather than laying its own cable as it is doing in the majority of its other Fiber projects.
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer responded today via Twitter that the city will “vigorously defend the lawsuit”. It’s also claiming that letting third party contractors move pole gear would cause “irreparable harm that can not be addressed by recovery of damages”.
Louisville is just of several markets where Google Fiber and AT&T have been battling to get a piece of the FTTH broadband market. In a Friday blog post, Chris Levendos, Fiber’s director of national deployment and operations, said the Alphabet unit was “disappointed” with AT&T’s suit.
But city residents clearly expect Google to build a network.
An AT&T spokesperson told PCMag that it welcomes competition from Google Fiber if it pays AT&T to access the poles.
“While we would welcome Google as a competitor, we feel they should play by the same rules that bind everyone else”, said Hood Harris, Kentucky state president of AT&T.
The ordinance, says AT&T, violate a number of state and federal laws. Ordinance supporters “said it will reduce disruption in neighborhoods as Google or other broadband providers install thousands of miles of new fiber-optic cable throughout Jefferson County”, WDRB wrote.
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Metro Councilman Bill Hollander, the ordinance’s sponsor, said earlier this month that the changes “will make the whole (installation) process faster and make the community more broadband ready”.
