Google Fiber Strikes Utility Pole Deals Across Portland, Oregon Friday Mar 11 2016 07:40 EDT In another sign that Google Fiber's getting ready to formally announce Portland, Oregon as a launch market, the company has been quietly signing utility pole access deals throughout the city with Portland General Electric and Pacific Power. Google Fiber's also working on striking a pole access deal with CenturyLink, which says it hopes to have a deal in place sometime in the "near future." The utility pole deals come on the heels of several other multi-year efforts by Portland and Oregon lawmakers to make the city and state more attractive to the company. Portland in 2014 reconfigured a city ordinance that banned the placing of fiber cabinets in city rights of way. The state meanwhile, after a few misfires, crafted a law designed to provide Google Fiber with several tax breaks for deploying gigabit service. Google Fiber has yet to deliver a single bit in Portland, but Comcast was quick to take advantage of the new tax breaks. Google Fiber has yet to unveil a formal launch date or timeline for when it plans to bring gigabit service to Portland, only stating the company is "making progress" and plans to have some kind of formal announcement "soon." |
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I have a problem with part of this."The utility pole deals come on the heels of several other multi-year efforts by Portland and Oregon lawmakers to make the city and state more attractive to the company."
Why are they trying to make these things attractive to a specific company and not any company? They should be focused on bringing more than just one company to market. They should be forced on removing the barriers so that you don't have to have more money than god or touch every single address in order to offer service. | |
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