Google's 1 Gbps Fiber Quietly Seeing Delays > WTF Is Kansas City's Problem

WTF Is Kansas City's Problem

quote:

---

What’s more, the city and county governments are one, and that same Unified Government of Wyandotte County owns the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities and its utility poles. That figured to make negotiations over installing Google’s fiber easier.

Now it turns out that differences over where and how to hang wires on those poles, and what fees or installation costs may be required, have created a troublesome bump in plans to launch the project at “Google speed.”

---

I find it funny that Google is now seeing what existing cable & telco companies have had to deal with for years when dealing with local government. They aren't used to having to payoff/bribe local officials to get anything done.

reply to pnh102
After reading thru the Kansas City Star, the main problem is hanging google's cable in the 40 inch zone, normally reserved for power.

Otherwise, cable tv and telephone have to lower their attachments, which takes time and costs money, which neither will do for free. Hanging cable in the 40 inch zone can be very risky from a safety point of view.

To really mess up the install, it will take just one lineman contacting the 7.2 kv, or higher primary lines to show the folly of hanging cable in the power zone.

reply to Linklist

reply to Austinloop

reply to pnh102
You will be hard pressed to find any city with uncrowded utility poles. When I was a telco engineer, I received requests for attachment and moving plant to allow attachment on a weekly basis, all of which required money from the entity wanting attachment.

It is a dollar thing, you want me to move my cable attachment down to accommodate your attachment, it will cost x dollars per pole, then multiply that by 2 or 3 depending if cable tv has attachments, or someone else has attachments also.

I, frankly, don't see this as the city giving google a hard time, but trying to maintain the 40 inch electrical clearance, to avoid safety issues.

What I don't understand is why google didn't see this, didn't they field survey the cities?

reply to pnh102
To have a level playing field, Google should not be treated any differently than AT&T/Bell or the power company using these poles.

So, the only question is, is Google being treated unfairly compared to others? Surely some standards need to be applied to use of utility poles. Telco and power and Google all would benefit from an easier process.

reply to Austinloop
Sometime in the future power telecom companies will pay a company to maintain utility poles and the underground systems ride away for industry there are plenty of ways to make money!

Regardless of who maintains the utility poles, someone will have to pay to have existing attachments changed, so that really changes nothing concerning attachments in the 40 inch safety zone.

reply to aztecnology

reply to Austinloop
I'm not disputing the safety aspects of this. I am simply saying that it is imperative that both cities come up with a solution that addresses these concerns.
--
"Net Neutrality" zealots - the people you can thank for your capped Internet service.

reply to axus

reply to pnh102
pnh, unfortunately, the solution involves having other utilities move their attachments to make room for google. That costs money, are you saying that the other utilities should move just as a favor to google.

I don't know how much experience you have with utility outside plant, but safety is the #1 priority, hence the 40 inch zone. Perhaps if the municipalities would reimburse the existing utilities to move their attachments, google could get it for free.

As I said earlier, google is obviously whining because they failed to do a complete field survey to determine all the problems. Incidentally, this clearance issue is normally observable from the ground without a lot of high tech equipment.

My sympathy for google is extremely limited.

reply to pnh102
So who do you believe should pay the cost of improvements to the electrical plant/poles so that google can hang fiber in a safe and legal manner?
residents of KC have paid for poles adequate for power and to carry telephone and cable lines. In return the telco and cableco pay a per pole attachment fee to payback the extra cost of the larger poles required to hold the weight/stresses of the extra layers of wiring. The Idea being that the electrical customers will never pay more then the cost of poles if the carried ONLY the electrical lines.
If one of the users causes the poles to be changed/upgraded to a bigger size than they should pay the additional cost plus the remainder of the unamortized life (about 40 years total) of the existing poles either directly or through a higher per pole annual fee.
typical wooden poles cost between $3,000 and $13000 a piece installed (3 phase power plus a telco and cable layer would require a 36-44 foot pole-- in the $11k range PER POLE plus regular maintaince, insurance (drunks/storms/ other acts of god) add 2 feet for a new layer of fiber/cable/copper/any new overbuilder must pay that cost.
Google doesn't get a free ride.

reply to pnh102

reply to tshirt

All the residents?
even those that don't want/can't afford more service than they already have?
So you're are saying any large corporation can come to YOUR town, hype something THEY(and some residents) think is important (even though Google says this is just an experiment) and then force the costs onto the city/taxpayers/residents?
Is that really what you want?
Just because you like the idea of FTTH, do you really want it(or anything else) in the way that implies?

reply to tshirt