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Judge Kills AT&T's Attempt to Slow Google Fiber in Louisville

A Federal Judge has shot down an AT&T lawsuit against the city of Louisville, one of several company bids to slow down Google Fiber's arrival to the region. AT&T sued the city back in February of last year after Louisville streamlined its utility pole attachment rules to speed up the arrival of competing broadband services to the city. Incumbent ISPs have long abused the absurdly bureaucratic pole attachment process to slow competitors, and Louisville's "one touch make ready" reforms streamlined the process significantly.

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A Federal Judge threw out AT&T's suit this week, arguing that it was well within Louisville Metro’s authority to manage its public rights-of-way.

Google Fiber had pushed for the rules, which let a licensed, insured contractor move any ISP's gear provided they get prior approval, and pay for any potential damage.

Previously, if a competitor wanted access to the pole, they needed to wait for each individual ISP to sign off on -- them move -- their own gear. That process already took numerous additional months, and large incumbent ISPs had a reputation for dragging their heels on the equipment moves to make life as difficult as possible for competitors.

AT&T sued the city under the pretense that it was worried about additional outages, but if you've spent any time watching the way AT&T does business, it becomes quickly clear the lawsuit was just another effort to hamstring competitors in the telecom space. Verizon, which not-coincidentally doesn't compete with Google Fiber in any of its east coast markets, has supported the rule changes as necessary and helpful in expediting broadband deployments.

AT&T is expected to appeal the ruling.

Most recommended from 31 comments


cahiatt
Premium Member
join:2001-03-21
Smyrna, GA

32 recommendations

cahiatt

Premium Member

Hey AT$T

Appeal this...
delltechkid
join:2004-11-09
Hermitage, TN

10 recommendations

delltechkid

Member

Of course..

I hope this ruling sticks on appeal. They've filed a similar suit here in Nashville. Of course, while they have Google tied up in court they're busy trying to lay and string as much fiber as possible, actually touching poles where Google has requests in for them to move their stuff, and they're still not making any room on those poles for Google.
ham3843
join:2015-01-15
USA

10 recommendations

ham3843

Member

Guess what?

If AT&T had ALREADY built out its FTTH product to their entire footprint do you really think they would spend a small fortune with lawyers to stop Google Fiber? LOL

camper
just visiting this planet
Premium Member
join:2010-03-21
Bethel, CT

6 recommendations

camper

Premium Member

A side benefit of Google Fiber

 

Sometimes I think that a side benefit of the deployment of Google Fiber is the exposure of the egregious practices that the incumbent, competition-fearing, ISPs have in place in order to assure that they face as little competition as possible.

The incumbents appear afraid to compete.

They seem to find it less expensive to prevent competition than to satisfy customers to the extent that they can compete.

Transmaster
Don't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY

4 recommendations

Transmaster

Member

I had a Dream

That Google Fiber was coming to Cheyenne, Wyoming that I would get a high fiber internet connection that "moved" real fast. That the threat of such a wonderful thing would cause Centurylink to start laying fiber faster, that might cause the local Comcast stooge to improve customer service, but all I hear is the sound of laugher.

Anondf7f9
@2600:1005.x

3 recommendations

Anondf7f9

Anon

New at&t

Yes, this isn't the old at&t. The old at&t was mainly a communication company. They started out as technically proficient and knowledgeable. Now, they're the new at&t looking to be a media holding company. They also seem to be good at getting rid of customers.

So the short of it seems to be, the new at&t no longer proficient, no longer a real communication company, and may or may not be a fake news Network. Does that sound correct?
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT

2 recommendations

BiggA

Premium Member

Verizon

Will be doing a lot of their own fiber for 5G and maybe targeted/redlined FiOS deployments outside of their ILEC territory.

davidc502
join:2002-03-06
Mount Juliet, TN

2 recommendations

davidc502

Member

Folks....... at&t already got what it wanted

This has been in litigation for some time, and at&t already got the delays it wanted to catch up. Winning the suit wasn't necessary, as all the delays to get to this point was all it needed. Now, had they won, it would have been icing on the cake.