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Yeah. Everything I've read it's because they've lost the lobbying war with incumbents. Incumbents (in those locations they are pausing) used their lobbyists, p

Yeah. Everything I've read it's because they've lost the lobbying war with incumbents. Incumbents (in those locations they are pausing) used their lobbyists, political connections, right of ways, existing contracts, etc. To block, delay and vastly increase the time and costs for Google. Driving Google to go wireless. [edit] here in Austin (where they didn't lose the lobbying war) it's full steam ahead. They have been continually spreading across city. Dug trenches at coworker's house last week.

rayiner 10y ago
> Everything I've read it's because they've lost the lobbying war with incumbents. Like what? There have been some lobbying skirmishes. But where was the big lobbying war they lost that prevented them from bringing Fiber to New York, Philly, SF, Chicago, DC, LA, or pretty much any major city? And what about all the cities begging Google for fiber? Why didn't Google take LA up on its bid to build fiber? http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/06/los-angeles-wants-to-bring-free-fiber-internet-to-every-resident-without-paying-for-it http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/06/los-angeles-wants-to-bring...? Or Baltimore? https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/08/snubbed-by-google-fiber-mad-at-comcast-baltimore-seeks-its-own-fiber https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/08/snubb....
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  Because the existing cities are enough of a proxy war with the incumbents? Louisville's OTMR lawsuit involves AT&T and Spectrum (Charter/Time Warner). Nashville's involves AT&T and Comcast. That's a big majority of the incumbents right there covered by just two cities on the Google Fiber interest map, in already relatively low regulated states.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    I think the lawsuits are kinda stupid, but saying they amount to a "proxy war" is ridiculous. Any infrastructure deployment will involve lawsuits to resolve competing rights to physical property. It's not like the incumbents are invoking some secret "we are guaranteed a monopoly in Louisville/Nashville" law. These are boring lawsuits about whether Google can touch/move AT&T/Spectrum's property while deploying its own infrastructure. Verizon/AT&T/TMO/Sprint somehow manage to build cell networks despite dealing with hundreds of lawsuits in connection with cell tower siting. It's naive to assert that it's these two lawsuits stopping Google from building a service it would otherwise build.
    - WorldMaker 10y ago
      I used "proxy war" very intentionally. A) Proxy: Google isn't even fighting these particular lawsuits directly, the cities themselves are. B) War: These examples are the first two off the top of my head out of many. As you point out there are hundreds of "boring lawsuits" involved in this process. There are many battles in a war, these are two of them as examples of the war between Google and incumbents. In a war, you pick your theaters and you pick your battles. The question was "Why isn't Google Fiber fighting in theaters of war that are practically begging for it when they are already spread thin across a number of theaters?" and the answer I'm pointing to is probably "Because they are trying to pick their theaters/battles." Whether or not you think these example lawsuits are stupid is beside that core point of "Because they are trying to pick their theaters/battles."
- njharman 10y ago
  like these https://www.google.com/search?q=at%26t+blocks+google+fiber&oq=at%26t+blocks+google+fiber&aqs=chrome..69i57.6058j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=at%26t+blocks+google+fiber&o... and these https://www.google.com/search?q=comcast+blocks+google+fiber&oq=comcast+blocks+google+fiber&aqs=chrome..69i57.7316j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=comcast+blocks+google+fiber&...

rayiner 10y ago

> Everything I've read it's because they've lost the lobbying war with incumbents. Like what? There have been some lobbying skirmishes. But where was the big lobbying war they lost that prevented them from bringing Fiber to New York, Philly, SF, Chicago, DC, LA, or pretty much any major city? And what about all the cities begging Google for fiber? Why didn't Google take LA up on its bid to build fiber? http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/06/los-angeles-wants-to-bring-free-fiber-internet-to-every-resident-without-paying-for-it http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/06/los-angeles-wants-to-bring...? Or Baltimore? https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/08/snubbed-by-google-fiber-mad-at-comcast-baltimore-seeks-its-own-fiber https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/08/snubb....

WorldMaker 10y ago
Because the existing cities are enough of a proxy war with the incumbents? Louisville's OTMR lawsuit involves AT&T and Spectrum (Charter/Time Warner). Nashville's involves AT&T and Comcast. That's a big majority of the incumbents right there covered by just two cities on the Google Fiber interest map, in already relatively low regulated states.
- rayiner 10y ago
  I think the lawsuits are kinda stupid, but saying they amount to a "proxy war" is ridiculous. Any infrastructure deployment will involve lawsuits to resolve competing rights to physical property. It's not like the incumbents are invoking some secret "we are guaranteed a monopoly in Louisville/Nashville" law. These are boring lawsuits about whether Google can touch/move AT&T/Spectrum's property while deploying its own infrastructure. Verizon/AT&T/TMO/Sprint somehow manage to build cell networks despite dealing with hundreds of lawsuits in connection with cell tower siting. It's naive to assert that it's these two lawsuits stopping Google from building a service it would otherwise build.
  - WorldMaker 10y ago
    I used "proxy war" very intentionally. A) Proxy: Google isn't even fighting these particular lawsuits directly, the cities themselves are. B) War: These examples are the first two off the top of my head out of many. As you point out there are hundreds of "boring lawsuits" involved in this process. There are many battles in a war, these are two of them as examples of the war between Google and incumbents. In a war, you pick your theaters and you pick your battles. The question was "Why isn't Google Fiber fighting in theaters of war that are practically begging for it when they are already spread thin across a number of theaters?" and the answer I'm pointing to is probably "Because they are trying to pick their theaters/battles." Whether or not you think these example lawsuits are stupid is beside that core point of "Because they are trying to pick their theaters/battles."
njharman 10y ago
like these https://www.google.com/search?q=at%26t+blocks+google+fiber&oq=at%26t+blocks+google+fiber&aqs=chrome..69i57.6058j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=at%26t+blocks+google+fiber&o... and these https://www.google.com/search?q=comcast+blocks+google+fiber&oq=comcast+blocks+google+fiber&aqs=chrome..69i57.7316j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=comcast+blocks+google+fiber&...