The Battle Over AT&T's Fiber Rollout

Tyler Too writes "AT&T is facing heated opposition from some communities where it wants to deploy its U-Verse fiber network. Ars Technica has a feature looking at the situation in the suburbs of Chicago. 'Legal uncertainty is the rule when it comes to IPTV deployments by telecommunications companies. Neither Congress nor the FCC [has] weighed in on whether services like U-verse require their operators to take out a cable franchise from cities, and no federal judge has issued a definitive ruling.' It's not just Chicago, either: 'With AT&T set to upgrade its infrastructure to support U-verse across its wide service area, this is a battle that could play out in thousands of communities across the country over the next few years.'"

And you wonder why US is behind on broadband?

[cdrguru]

It is this kind of legal wrangling that goes on endlessly. Sure, if everything in the entire country was controlled by The Government there would be fewer people to sue over stuff like this. But I hardly think that would be a solution most people would find acceptable in the end. Like many things, it sounds good until you find out the details.

OK, so there should be competitive entities. Well, if you are going to spend a billion or so dollars you need to mitigate every risk, right? Unfortunately, the lawyers have set things up such that one risk that is very difficult to mitigate is someone else suing you over some perceived wrong. And yes, trying to run a fiber link is going to distrupt many businesses and push a few under. When those entities have been forced to jump through other legal hurdles to combat all the NIMBY lawsuits and "beautification" lawsuits (you know, those wires are really ugly...) and endless other lawsuits a lot of people feel very justified in suing over what will essentially put them out of business.

Sure, it is just the changing face of technology. But cable TV has been over-regulated in most US cities for so long that it is going to be a real battle to convince those owners that they bought nothing with all of their franchise fees, taxes, and public meetings.

so what?

[hjf]

A little competition doesn't harm anyone. There was only one broadband (ADSL) provider here in my country (the largest monopoly). They charged whatever they wanted. One day they went too far (the infamous 4GB cap and $20 for the extra GB or fraction). What happened? Cable modem operators started operating in cities where they didn't provide service, with double the speed and no limits.

So, Telecom Argentina had to do something to keep their customers: They increased the speed 5x, kept the same price, and removed all kind of caps. That's just capitalism and competition in action. Yes, local cable operators want to "protect their investment", but most of these did that investment 10 years ago, and want to keep earning money without investing in newer stuff. So they go through the legal way in order to stop competition (or to buy a few more months). But, well, sooner or later they either do some spending or competition will eat them. It's just the way it is. It's everyting america stands for, right? Capitalism.

Franchise even needed?

[theoriginalturtle]

AT&T and other phone providers don't seem to NEED a new "franchise agreement" from any local government because they pretty much already HAVE one and have had it ever since copper wires were laid in. It seems pointless, and fairly stupid actually, to demand that a change in the physical media from copper to fiber would demand some new operating agreement, oversight and (ahem) ***FRANCHISE FEES** with the local government. What we're talking about here is a change in content, not a change in the nature of the communications infrastructure. The local telcos have already had the rights to go bury copper cable all over suburbia, the fact that the new physical medium MIGHT be used to carry some new content is pretty much irrelevant, any more than the fact that phone lines could carry voice *but also* carry fax required any interaction with localities.

The issue is more likely that Comcast doesn't want the competition, never mind that they already HAVE it from systems that don't involve physical right-of-way, i.e., DirecTV.

Unrelated question, and obvious attempt to stir up conspiracy hounds: does anyone know if Comcast is subtly or overtly behind efforts to ban or restrict satellite dishes? Seems like there was a move in Boston to ban visible satellite dishes, largely in violation of FCC regs that don't generally permit localities to do so.

Re:I just want some fiber

[TheGavster]

well, or do something what the water companies do: run fiber near someone, and let them pay if they want to hook on.

Does your water company seriously do that? In my town, they wanted to run water to the middle of town to promote denser development. I have a nice little private well and live along the way, and they not only forced me to pay the $5K hookup charge to this new (totally uneeded) line, but also to pay for the pipe running out in the middle of the road, and to take on a monthly fee even though I already have a source of water. On top of it, they copied their work elsewhere in the area and didn't take care in repaving over the trench, so now the road is crap to drive on as well (some genius decided right where your left tires go was a nice place to put a bumpy strip over the pipe). I suppose I could have it worse; rather than pay the subscription+zero volume for the capped off pipe in the basement, an uncle of mine out in Washington State is actually prohibited from using water other than city water. This includes rainwater cisterns, for when there's a storm and the crap public water stops.

Re:And people think we have net nutrality already.

[Anonymous Coward]

What does that have to do with net neutrality?

You've apparently bought into some random smokescreen interpretation of it, spread by either an idiot, or by a telco.

If you want to try and make an analogue between network neutrality and TV and the government, it would be like the FCC broadcasting interference on every channel except those that paid extra. They would receive a channel allocation where it would come through crystal clear. Any other channel could pay up at any time if they wanted crystal clear reception, yet everyone would be just fine if the FCC quit with the interference. After all, think of the internet now: when was the last time google was "slow" for you? Yet the ISPs insist that google needs to pay up or their traffic will be slow, yet the only way this threat has any bite is if the ISPs involved broadcast the interference themselves.

No, what you've got is the usual taxation and corruption.

Re:Big Business is against local power

[TellarHK]

I'm an IT manager for a new Public Access entity in Nevada, and let me tell you something - it's a well-spent few thousand dollars per town. As recently as nine months ago, I didn't think public access was an important thing at all but that changed once I saw just how many people really rely on PEG (Public, Education, Government) access channels for a lot of local information and content. You don't watch public access, but grandma does and she's not exactly wired in with DSL nine times out of ten. As we're starting from the ground up, I have a pretty clear insight as to just how much this kind of operation can cost and how much it costs to maintain it and though I can't give you our budget numbers (we haven't had them approved yet, that happens this weekend) I can tell you that our program is going to be running on a shoestring compared to others that get far more than a million dollars per year in operating expenses and have accumulated hundreds of thousands in (highly depreciated) equipment.

Also keep in mind that the money that funds public access is considered part of the cable company's fee structure, and on the proposed agreement for our city (up for voting this week) it comes out to fifteen cents per monthly bill in charges that actually go to funding capital improvements and buildout to our Public Access program.

Now, what do communities get from public access?

In our city, we don't have network affiliates of our own, so our public access is the only way for people to see a community bulletin board and community events videos from groups like the Chamber of Commerce, Boys and Girls Clubs, local youth sports, and of course all sorts of religious content for those people so inclined. In addition, we also broadcast city government meetings live and in reruns so city residents can stay informed even with just the most basic cable account.

Most PEG programs are non-profits under a 501(c)3 so we're not in it for the money.

Also, from the examples given in your posting I'd have to say you really don't know much about just what communities use PEG channels for. There may be cases where "townies" get a power trip, but for every case where someone's lawn is regulated to 1.75" (which is more of a homeowner's association nightmare than a local legislative one) you'll get ten major ones such as regulations on billboards and new building developments that actually draw huge crowds of interested viewers both on television and in the hearing room.

Re:I thought Verizon was IPTV

[AK Marc]

Verizon's FIOS is fully CableCard and digital-tuner compatible, meaning your new TV (or new Media Center PC w/tuner card, TiVo, etc) doesn't need anything new or fancy to access the coax running out of the converter. IPTV is *NOT* compatible, and requires device lock-in with conversion boxes.

I can find precious little on the lo-layer specifications of FiOS, however, it appears to be IPTV. They may build in the converter box to the outside of the house to convert it back to something that "old" boxes can recognize, but from what I can tell, from the head end to the home, it is all IP. It sounds to me like the "we aren't a cellular company" chant from them being a cellular company but trying to get their cellular service to be called something else for differentiation. Just because they complain they they aren't "cellular" doesn't mean that they are, in fact, not cellular. Just because they make up some FiOS name for their particular IPTV product does not make it anything other than IPTV.

Re:FCC supporting monopolies again

[hobo sapiens]

The main problem here is "cherry-picking"

Maybe, but remember AT&T (SBC) made the same claim about CLECs, ISPs, and Cable companies when these began offering phone service. And really, the cherry picking claims were/are justified. Of course AT&T will do that, at least at first, just like the startup telcos did. But it would seem that turnabout is fair play. If AT&T wants to cherry pick, let em. It isn't going to hurt anyone, maybe except for the cable companies. But then again, they are in some ways worse monopolies than ol Ma Bell.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:FCC supporting monopolies again

[xothermic]

Actually, I'd say it's nothing of the sort. I actually grew up in Geneva, and resided there in 2004 when the city tried to pass a referendum to provide municipal fiber to it's citizens, working with the surrounding towns (St. Charles and Batavia). http://www.geneva.il.us/bb/faq.htm [geneva.il.us]

The plan seemed pretty good, the city would provide fiber to the doorstep selling bonds to cover the upfront costs. The bonds would be paid back by the subscriber base's monthly fees which were slated to be reasonable ($40-50/mo iirc). There was tons of misinformation spread by Comcast and SBC (now AT&T). Employees of said companies sent out their employees door to door handing out pamphlets that were mostly untruthful and lead people to believe their taxes would increase if the plan went through. The initiative failed, and my assumption to some degree is that the city is still trying to accomplish this (or they are bitter) If you RTFA, the city of Geneva has a great independent streak, currently providing their own water and electricity and this has nothing to do with supporting monopolies or the FCC.

Re:Yadda yadda

[swb]

and getting together enough tax money to do major upgrades could take a decade.

If the municipal network provider was able to have the municipality issue tax-free bonds on behalf of the network provider, it shouldn't be hard to raise money to perform significant upgrades, and the upgrades ought be cheaper this way than via a private entity borrowing money from a bank or issuing their own bonds (we'll ignore the broader issue of the "cost" of the bonds tax-exempt status).

What I think should happen, though, is that cities should build in some of the underground infrastructure -- cable tunnels, equipment vaults, perhaps even mandating a standard for house-to-street cabling connections the same way they do sewer and water connections -- and then require the utilities to use these facilities, but on an equal basis.

This way the big last-mile problem isn't so big anymore, since there's a pre-built and standard infrastructure in place for running wire.

Living in Geneva...

[Insightfill]

I can tell you that AT&T's position is pretty goofy. As the former SBC in the area, their fear campaign against community-based broadband was pretty brutal. They bombed the mailboxes with little flyers like here [tricitybroadband.com] and really soured me more on the company. Now they come around and claim that we need the exact service they were shooting down last year. Sheesh. Those boxes are also pretty huge.