AT&T is fuming at the approval and likely passage of a Nashville, TN, ordinance that would allow Google Fiber to bypass previous obstacles to utility pole access:
Officials in Nashville, Tennessee have voted to give Google Fiber faster access to utility poles, approving an ordinance opposed by AT&T and Comcast. AT&T has already said it would likely sue the city if it implements the new rule. [...] Google Fiber is available in parts of Nashville, but expansion has been slow in part because of how long it takes to get access to utility poles. When Google Fiber attaches wires to a utility pole, other ISPs must first move their own wires to make the pole ready for new wires. The Nashville Electric Service, which owns most of the poles, must also review applications and inspect AT&T's and Comcast's line work before letting Google Fiber attach to any pole. AT&T also owns some of the poles in the city.
The One Touch Make Ready ordinance would let a single company—such as Google Fiber—make all of the necessary wire adjustments itself without having to wait for incumbent providers to send construction crews. Google Fiber applauded the vote last night, saying that "Improving the make-ready construction process is key to unlocking access to a faster Internet for Nashville, and this Ordinance will allow new entrants like Google Fiber to bring broadband to more Nashvillians efficiently, safely and quickly."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 08 2016, @01:38PM
I'd be hesitant to trust Google with anything. They'd start their Google fiber program today, discontinue it tomorrow, start a wireless program the day after then discontinue it in four days without warning. You'll be in the middle of a conversation and suddenly your phone gets cut off out of the blue because Google, last minute, suddenly decided to cut off and discontinue their service without warning.
If it were any other company I wouldn't be so hesitant to allow them to use my polls to compete with incumbents. But Google is too risky.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 08 2016, @02:10PM
Plus if I were a Google fiber customer I would be concerned. If Google suddenly decides to discontinue their service last minute without warning then everyone in my neighborhood who used Google fiber would be scrambling to find a new ISP last minute. So I'd be calling competing ISP services, it'd be impossible for me to get through because everyone is calling them too, then I may have to wait for them to send me a modem in the mail, then it might turn out that there is something now wrong or incompatible with my cable or phone lines or the lines coming to my house either because I never had their service before or something changed between the time that I've last had their service and now but because I didn't have their service at the time of the change they didn't implement the transition (a transition that they could have made seamless if I had had their service at the time) or maybe something went wrong with a wire they were previously using. But now that they are being overwhelmed it could take forever for them to send out a technician after I've gotten the modem in the mail and diagnosed that there is a problem since I'm probably not the only one with problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 08 2016, @02:34PM
The argument might hold with their cloud or software services, but physical infrastructure involves a significant capital investment and multi-year contracts for things like access to these poles.
There's no point in Google discontinuing services, they'd still have to pay out full terms on the access contracts and they won't easily pay off all the glass they've strung up if nobody's paying for access.
Even if they did - another telco would snatch up that physical plant within seconds.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday September 08 2016, @04:52PM
You're not being fair to Google. Take Reader for example. Google gave more than three months advance notice and allowed full export functionality. Reader's demise sucked, but you could hardly fault how Google executed the retirement.
And it's not like Google has to do much to beat the competition, all they have to do is provide a reliable link and not raise the price or slip in hidden fees every fucking month. I'm leaning toward trying their Project Fi, so I'll be able to get a better picture of how well Google does as a network service provider, but really, I'm not asking for much, am I?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @12:48AM
OK, maybe I would try their service. But I still feel like I'm being fair to Google.
Just look at all the stuff they did recently last minute (ie: Youtube demonetization not to mention this
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160907/00340935453/thanks-google-fucking-over-bunch-media-websites.shtml [techdirt.com] ).
The fact of the matter is that Google has a long reputation for making last minute abrupt changes with no prior notice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @12:30AM