13 ms·

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

296 points by pavornyoh 11y ago

gjkood 11y ago
I read a book a long time ago about AT&T Bell Labs. I think it may have been "Three Degrees Above Zero", but I am not sure now. Something that impressed me a great deal at that time was the testing that AT&T used to do with utility poles, to ensure that it withstands the vagaries of nature and time in all types of climatic zones.
- kajecounterhack 11y ago
  I read the same thing in this book! http://www.amazon.com/Idea-Factory-Great-American-Innovation/dp/0143122797 http://www.amazon.com/Idea-Factory-Great-American-Innovation... I'm from Holmdel NJ, the old location of bell labs. Really cool how they used to invent so much.
  - SwellJoe 11y ago
    Bell Labs was spun off from AT&T into Lucent 20 years ago. A shell of its former self is now owned by Nokia, by way of a variety of mergers and acquisitions.
    - yeukhon 11y ago
      Is the lab in NJ still active? I heard it was abandoned or at least void of life there.
- twistedpair 11y ago
  Everything was designed to last 40 years. That's why the last electromechanical switch installations were not torn out until 1995. They were old, but functional, as designed. Do you see hardware today being designed to these specs? A company investing in 40 year quality equipment would quickly be brought under new management, since they clearly are not focused on maximizing returns for this quarter.
SwellJoe 11y ago
The telecoms are masters of destroying competition through legislative means. They utterly destroyed DSL competition during the dawn of broadband (my first company sold to independent ISPs; I watched them all wither and die within the span of about four years, as broadband took over and they were prevented from competing by shady behavior by AT&T and Verizon), and now they're trying everything at their disposal to continue to deliver poor service at high prices without effective competition. The difference this time is that Google is bigger than they are, and not quite as much of a pushover in the legal domain. It's still an uphill battle, and consumers are still going to be the ones to suffer under pathetically poor quality and expensive Internet service (the US is something like 14th in quality/speed/price in the world for Internet service, despite it having been invented here, and despite having vastly more infrastructure investment at all levels). The best thing that could possibly happen for the Internet in the US would be the swift and total annihilation of anti-competitive companies like AT&T, Verizon, and the major cable companies, leaving room for innovators to step in and fill the void. But, that won't happen...they're too good at stacking the deck to remain in leadership positions in the market, despite delivering terrible service on nearly every front. Not that I'm bitter, or anything.
- beedogs 11y ago
  I'd like to see the Sherman Act used against Comcast / Verizon / ATT. It's like the executive branch has forgotten that law even exists.
  - mkhpalm 11y ago
    Its not that our politicians have forgotten. Its that applying certain laws would conflict with getting filthy lucre. http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s&showYear=2015 http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s&showYea...
    - SwellJoe 11y ago
      The fact that Alphabet is just above AT&T in that list is what gives me hope that this time it will be different. It's a nasty business, and I hate that Google has to participate in bribery in order to be allowed to innovate on behalf of consumers, but the alternative of having AT&T writing the laws is far more awful (and is why we're in the mess we're in when it comes to Internet service in the US).
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jleader 11y ago
My understanding is that telephone, cable, and power providers share the poles. Don't the power companies usually own the poles? So if they added internet providers to the list of companies authorized to share the poles, AT&T wouldn't have grounds for complaint. Since internet providers (such as AT&T) already share the poles, this seems like a reasonable move. In my neighborhood we had 2 competing cable providers for about a decade, and they managed to share the poles (along with the phone company and the power company) without any problems (or at least, any problems that made the news).
- tzs 11y ago
  In this case some poles are owned by AT&T and some are owned by the electric company. I expect that this is common. The telephone system and the commercial electricity distribution system were developed at about the same time, and I believe that in many cities telephones were widely deployed before electricity. (I wonder if this is why the phone system provided its own power rather than relying on power being available at the customer premises?)
jessaustin 11y ago
TFA isn't clear about this, but I suspect that all of the poles in question are actually owned by LG&E who operate the electrical lines that hang from them. So "...its utility poles" in the title should actually be "...the same utility poles it uses". There probably is some dumb FCC rule that supports ATT's position here, because after all those rules are written by ATT. One hopes that courts would decide FCC don't govern how LG&E's poles are used. If any agency would, surely it would be DoE?
- tzs 11y ago
  > TFA isn't clear about this, but I suspect that all of the poles in question are actually owned by LG&E who operate the electrical lines that hang from them TFA article says, "Most of the poles used by AT&T in the area are owned by AT&T or Louisville Gas & Electric".
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    The editor who wrote the title must not have read that far. b^)
- igjeff 11y ago
  As others have mentioned, the poles in Louisville are owned mostly by a mix of AT&T (about 40%) and our local power utility (Louisville, Gas & Electric; LG&E) (about 60%). But pole ownership really isn't relevant, here. The right for new companies to attach to the poles isn't in doubt, and isn't part of this dispute. The dispute here is part of the make ready process...who has the right to rearrange the wires already on the pole to make space for the new attacher? Even the right to have the space made available isn't in doubt...it's merely who does the actual work of making it available.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    Having worked at a CLEC in the mid-2000s, I can well imagine the pain involved in ATT "making ready" a utility pole. If they have a 60-day window, then in the typical case, on day 58 they'll bounce your work order with some nonsensical reason code. So you hurry to follow up with your service rep that day, but she'll have to "investigate", which will take until the weekend, and then you'll get a "just resubmit it" on next Tuesday. Then if you're lucky the made_ready status in the database will change sometime in the next 60 days. At no point will a tech actually visit the pole in question. They just figure that it's right and proper for a competitor of theirs to have to wait three months to serve a customer.
datashovel 11y ago
Publications just need to continue to follow these stories, and print relevant details. The rest will take care of itself. Investors with large stakes in AT&T, and board members, need to take a look in the mirror and ask themselves whether the CEO's compensation is in line with his ability to ask his legal department to sue people / companies / governments, or is it in line with his ability to make at&t a great company that accomplishes amazing things for its customers.
notlisted 11y ago
Related: if you want to read how the Telecoms have us over a barrel, and how they fleeced us all yet never delivered on what they promised, read http://www.amazon.com/Broadbandits-Inside-Billion-Telecom-Heist/dp/0471660612 http://www.amazon.com/Broadbandits-Inside-Billion-Telecom-He... (by Om Malik, of GigaOm fame)
- twistedpair 11y ago
  The Master Switch by Tim Wu [0] goes into great detail about how AT&T invented this racket 120+ years ago and has been perfecting their fleecing tactics since. I particularly enjoy the opening of the book at a 1916 top hat banquet celebrating just how filthy rich their monopoly has become under Theodore Vail. The Idea Factory by Jon Gertner [1] however asserts that the AT&T monopoly allowed Bell Labs to essentially invent the entire information age, but that without the official monopoly, we no longer see the huge investments in basic research, and commensurate major break throughs. Damn if you do. Damned if you don't. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/The-Master-Switch-Information-Empires/dp/0307390993 https://www.amazon.com/The-Master-Switch-Information-Empires... [1]: https://www.amazon.com/The-Idea-Factory-American-Innovation/dp/0143122797 https://www.amazon.com/The-Idea-Factory-American-Innovation/...
jfoutz 11y ago
An elegant reply would be to enact a large fee on privately owned telephone poles, and then waive the fee for one-touch consenting pole owners.
- bloaf 11y ago
  I'm curious if a municipality could threaten to eminent domain-ify themselves the utility poles.
drawkbox 11y ago
This is a losing tactic, just delaying the inevitable or buying time. Legislation can only stop progress towards innovation for so long.
- r00fus 11y ago
  The petroleum industry has waged a decades old battle against solar, nuclear and battery technology and they swam in the filthy money. AT&T is an old hand at monopolizing. I don't think this is their swan song.
tzs 11y ago
Most of the comments are discussing broader issues that aren't actually part of this particular lawsuit. Those issues are certainly more interesting than the narrow issue that this lawsuit is about, so I can understand why everyone wants to talk about them. Nevertheless, we should have at least some discussion about the actual lawsuit, so I'll have a shot at it. :-) I took a look at AT&T's court filing (there's a link in the article to it for those who want more detail). They make two main arguments. The first argument is that under FCC rules an entity with existing attachments is entitled to written notification if someone else's attachment is going to affect their facilities. They then have 60 days to modify their attachments to accommodate the new attachments. If they do not complete the work on time to accommodate the new attachments, then the entity wanting the new attachment can go ahead and do the work themselves. Under the municipal ordinance the new attacher only has to provide notification if they think that their work is likely to cause a customer outage. If not they can simply go in themselves and move or modify the existing attachment. This is at odds with the FCC rules, and AT&T argues that this should invalidate the municipal ordinance. The second argument AT&T makes is that while the Federal law does allow states to override FCC pole attachment rules in some circumstances, Kentucky state law vests such power exclusively in the Public Service Commission of Kentucky (and they cite Kentucky court cases confirming that this includes the power to regulate pole attachments). Thus, AT&T argues, the municipal government does not have authority to enact its ordinance. These actually seem like pretty decent arguments. I'm curious what counterarguments the defendants will raise.
- bavcyc 11y ago
  There is an actual physical basis for AT&T's position. When a pole line is designed, the poles and guys are designed for certain criteria (power poles are NESC and/or RUS plus any state specific regulations). If someone wants to attach to the same pole then the pole may not support the new attachment per NESC (for power poles) or the guying may need adjustment. Reviewing the new attachments can take time, 60 days is not unreasonable. Along with this, the poles may need to be surveyed depending on how long the poles have been installed. Poles installed a long time ago may not have drawings and that means a field visit to collect the information. If the party wanting to attach to a pole provides sealed drawings from an engineer that the attachments have no adverse effect, then it is usually a quick review of the submitted attachment package to make sure everything is in order.
EliRivers 11y ago
"This lawsuit is not about Google. It’s about the Louisville Metro Council exceeding its authority." Uh huh. I'm sure that if Louisville Metro Council passed an ordinance beyond their remit about soup kitchens serving the homeless AT&T would be right in there. There comes a point when the self-serving lies become so transparent it's offensive that they'd even say them.
XJOKOLAT 11y ago
Sorry, down-votes accepted, disclaimer that I don't support Google out of preference at all, but from a consumer point of view, I must say ... FUCK YOU, AT&T.

296 points by pavornyoh 11y ago

I read a book a long time ago about AT&T Bell Labs. I think it may have been "Three Degrees Above Zero", but I am not sure now. Something that impressed me a great deal at that time was the testing that AT&T used to do with utility poles, to ensure that it withstands the vagaries of nature and time in all types of climatic zones.

kajecounterhack 11y ago
I read the same thing in this book! http://www.amazon.com/Idea-Factory-Great-American-Innovation/dp/0143122797 http://www.amazon.com/Idea-Factory-Great-American-Innovation... I'm from Holmdel NJ, the old location of bell labs. Really cool how they used to invent so much.
- SwellJoe 11y ago
  Bell Labs was spun off from AT&T into Lucent 20 years ago. A shell of its former self is now owned by Nokia, by way of a variety of mergers and acquisitions.
  - yeukhon 11y ago
    Is the lab in NJ still active? I heard it was abandoned or at least void of life there.
twistedpair 11y ago
Everything was designed to last 40 years. That's why the last electromechanical switch installations were not torn out until 1995. They were old, but functional, as designed. Do you see hardware today being designed to these specs? A company investing in 40 year quality equipment would quickly be brought under new management, since they clearly are not focused on maximizing returns for this quarter.

SwellJoe 11y ago

The telecoms are masters of destroying competition through legislative means. They utterly destroyed DSL competition during the dawn of broadband (my first company sold to independent ISPs; I watched them all wither and die within the span of about four years, as broadband took over and they were prevented from competing by shady behavior by AT&T and Verizon), and now they're trying everything at their disposal to continue to deliver poor service at high prices without effective competition. The difference this time is that Google is bigger than they are, and not quite as much of a pushover in the legal domain. It's still an uphill battle, and consumers are still going to be the ones to suffer under pathetically poor quality and expensive Internet service (the US is something like 14th in quality/speed/price in the world for Internet service, despite it having been invented here, and despite having vastly more infrastructure investment at all levels). The best thing that could possibly happen for the Internet in the US would be the swift and total annihilation of anti-competitive companies like AT&T, Verizon, and the major cable companies, leaving room for innovators to step in and fill the void. But, that won't happen...they're too good at stacking the deck to remain in leadership positions in the market, despite delivering terrible service on nearly every front. Not that I'm bitter, or anything.

beedogs 11y ago
I'd like to see the Sherman Act used against Comcast / Verizon / ATT. It's like the executive branch has forgotten that law even exists.
- mkhpalm 11y ago
  Its not that our politicians have forgotten. Its that applying certain laws would conflict with getting filthy lucre. http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s&showYear=2015 http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s&showYea...
  - SwellJoe 11y ago
    The fact that Alphabet is just above AT&T in that list is what gives me hope that this time it will be different. It's a nasty business, and I hate that Google has to participate in bribery in order to be allowed to innovate on behalf of consumers, but the alternative of having AT&T writing the laws is far more awful (and is why we're in the mess we're in when it comes to Internet service in the US).

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

jleader 11y ago

My understanding is that telephone, cable, and power providers share the poles. Don't the power companies usually own the poles? So if they added internet providers to the list of companies authorized to share the poles, AT&T wouldn't have grounds for complaint. Since internet providers (such as AT&T) already share the poles, this seems like a reasonable move. In my neighborhood we had 2 competing cable providers for about a decade, and they managed to share the poles (along with the phone company and the power company) without any problems (or at least, any problems that made the news).

tzs 11y ago
In this case some poles are owned by AT&T and some are owned by the electric company. I expect that this is common. The telephone system and the commercial electricity distribution system were developed at about the same time, and I believe that in many cities telephones were widely deployed before electricity. (I wonder if this is why the phone system provided its own power rather than relying on power being available at the customer premises?)

jessaustin 11y ago

TFA isn't clear about this, but I suspect that all of the poles in question are actually owned by LG&E who operate the electrical lines that hang from them. So "...its utility poles" in the title should actually be "...the same utility poles it uses". There probably is some dumb FCC rule that supports ATT's position here, because after all those rules are written by ATT. One hopes that courts would decide FCC don't govern how LG&E's poles are used. If any agency would, surely it would be DoE?

tzs 11y ago
> TFA isn't clear about this, but I suspect that all of the poles in question are actually owned by LG&E who operate the electrical lines that hang from them TFA article says, "Most of the poles used by AT&T in the area are owned by AT&T or Louisville Gas & Electric".
- jessaustin 11y ago
  The editor who wrote the title must not have read that far. b^)
igjeff 11y ago
As others have mentioned, the poles in Louisville are owned mostly by a mix of AT&T (about 40%) and our local power utility (Louisville, Gas & Electric; LG&E) (about 60%). But pole ownership really isn't relevant, here. The right for new companies to attach to the poles isn't in doubt, and isn't part of this dispute. The dispute here is part of the make ready process...who has the right to rearrange the wires already on the pole to make space for the new attacher? Even the right to have the space made available isn't in doubt...it's merely who does the actual work of making it available.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  Having worked at a CLEC in the mid-2000s, I can well imagine the pain involved in ATT "making ready" a utility pole. If they have a 60-day window, then in the typical case, on day 58 they'll bounce your work order with some nonsensical reason code. So you hurry to follow up with your service rep that day, but she'll have to "investigate", which will take until the weekend, and then you'll get a "just resubmit it" on next Tuesday. Then if you're lucky the made_ready status in the database will change sometime in the next 60 days. At no point will a tech actually visit the pole in question. They just figure that it's right and proper for a competitor of theirs to have to wait three months to serve a customer.

datashovel 11y ago

Publications just need to continue to follow these stories, and print relevant details. The rest will take care of itself. Investors with large stakes in AT&T, and board members, need to take a look in the mirror and ask themselves whether the CEO's compensation is in line with his ability to ask his legal department to sue people / companies / governments, or is it in line with his ability to make at&t a great company that accomplishes amazing things for its customers.

notlisted 11y ago

Related: if you want to read how the Telecoms have us over a barrel, and how they fleeced us all yet never delivered on what they promised, read http://www.amazon.com/Broadbandits-Inside-Billion-Telecom-Heist/dp/0471660612 http://www.amazon.com/Broadbandits-Inside-Billion-Telecom-He... (by Om Malik, of GigaOm fame)

twistedpair 11y ago
The Master Switch by Tim Wu [0] goes into great detail about how AT&T invented this racket 120+ years ago and has been perfecting their fleecing tactics since. I particularly enjoy the opening of the book at a 1916 top hat banquet celebrating just how filthy rich their monopoly has become under Theodore Vail. The Idea Factory by Jon Gertner [1] however asserts that the AT&T monopoly allowed Bell Labs to essentially invent the entire information age, but that without the official monopoly, we no longer see the huge investments in basic research, and commensurate major break throughs. Damn if you do. Damned if you don't. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/The-Master-Switch-Information-Empires/dp/0307390993 https://www.amazon.com/The-Master-Switch-Information-Empires... [1]: https://www.amazon.com/The-Idea-Factory-American-Innovation/dp/0143122797 https://www.amazon.com/The-Idea-Factory-American-Innovation/...

jfoutz 11y ago

An elegant reply would be to enact a large fee on privately owned telephone poles, and then waive the fee for one-touch consenting pole owners.

bloaf 11y ago
I'm curious if a municipality could threaten to eminent domain-ify themselves the utility poles.

drawkbox 11y ago

This is a losing tactic, just delaying the inevitable or buying time. Legislation can only stop progress towards innovation for so long.

r00fus 11y ago
The petroleum industry has waged a decades old battle against solar, nuclear and battery technology and they swam in the filthy money. AT&T is an old hand at monopolizing. I don't think this is their swan song.

tzs 11y ago

Most of the comments are discussing broader issues that aren't actually part of this particular lawsuit. Those issues are certainly more interesting than the narrow issue that this lawsuit is about, so I can understand why everyone wants to talk about them. Nevertheless, we should have at least some discussion about the actual lawsuit, so I'll have a shot at it. :-) I took a look at AT&T's court filing (there's a link in the article to it for those who want more detail). They make two main arguments. The first argument is that under FCC rules an entity with existing attachments is entitled to written notification if someone else's attachment is going to affect their facilities. They then have 60 days to modify their attachments to accommodate the new attachments. If they do not complete the work on time to accommodate the new attachments, then the entity wanting the new attachment can go ahead and do the work themselves. Under the municipal ordinance the new attacher only has to provide notification if they think that their work is likely to cause a customer outage. If not they can simply go in themselves and move or modify the existing attachment. This is at odds with the FCC rules, and AT&T argues that this should invalidate the municipal ordinance. The second argument AT&T makes is that while the Federal law does allow states to override FCC pole attachment rules in some circumstances, Kentucky state law vests such power exclusively in the Public Service Commission of Kentucky (and they cite Kentucky court cases confirming that this includes the power to regulate pole attachments). Thus, AT&T argues, the municipal government does not have authority to enact its ordinance. These actually seem like pretty decent arguments. I'm curious what counterarguments the defendants will raise.

bavcyc 11y ago
There is an actual physical basis for AT&T's position. When a pole line is designed, the poles and guys are designed for certain criteria (power poles are NESC and/or RUS plus any state specific regulations). If someone wants to attach to the same pole then the pole may not support the new attachment per NESC (for power poles) or the guying may need adjustment. Reviewing the new attachments can take time, 60 days is not unreasonable. Along with this, the poles may need to be surveyed depending on how long the poles have been installed. Poles installed a long time ago may not have drawings and that means a field visit to collect the information. If the party wanting to attach to a pole provides sealed drawings from an engineer that the attachments have no adverse effect, then it is usually a quick review of the submitted attachment package to make sure everything is in order.

EliRivers 11y ago

"This lawsuit is not about Google. It’s about the Louisville Metro Council exceeding its authority." Uh huh. I'm sure that if Louisville Metro Council passed an ordinance beyond their remit about soup kitchens serving the homeless AT&T would be right in there. There comes a point when the self-serving lies become so transparent it's offensive that they'd even say them.

XJOKOLAT 11y ago

Sorry, down-votes accepted, disclaimer that I don't support Google out of preference at all, but from a consumer point of view, I must say ... FUCK YOU, AT&T.