Charter Files Lawsuit To Slow Rollout Of Google Fiber

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Filing a lawsuit to slow the rollout of Google Fiber is nothing new. Filing a lawsuit to slow the rollout of Google Fiber in a city where it isn't even offered yet is. :eek:

Charter says it doesn’t oppose competition from Google Fiber and AT&T in Louisville, it just thinks the city is letting these competitors enter the market without the sort of regulatory hazing that Charter/Insight had to go through. The complaint alleges that when AT&T brought its U-Verse pay-TV service to Louisville in 2009, the Louisville Metro authorities allowed U-Verse to operate “without any local franchise or local regulation.”
 
so freaking sad that in this country competition just isn't allowed anymore.

they are just so afraid they'll have to step up to the plate and actual do a good job in order to keep customers.
 
I'm quite horrified how bad the internet situation in the USA is. For such a densely populated and technically advanced country it's really strange. I live in a small town in the middle part of norway, there are only a few thousand people in it. Yet I have 300/300mpbs fibrer in my house, ~75usd/month, could get 1.5gbps up/down for twice as much. Really, guys, I feel sorry for you.
 
Koween said:
I'm quite horrified how bad the internet situation in the USA is. For such a densely populated and technically advanced country it's really strange. I live in a small town in the middle part of norway, there are only a few thousand people in it. Yet I have 300/300mpbs fibrer in my house, ~75usd/month, could get 1.5gbps up/down for twice as much. Really, guys, I feel sorry for you.
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I hate you....will you let me move in with you i want 300/300 for $75 i pay $80 for 60/4 and get 50 down on a good day
 
Koween said:
I'm quite horrified how bad the internet situation in the USA is. For such a densely populated and technically advanced country it's really strange. I live in a small town in the middle part of norway, there are only a few thousand people in it. Yet I have 300/300mpbs fibrer in my house, ~75usd/month, could get 1.5gbps up/down for twice as much. Really, guys, I feel sorry for you.
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Thats the result of having the best government that money can buy, literally!

Damn asshole in the white house, capitol, etc should wear sponsored-by badges.
 
Koween said:
I'm quite horrified how bad the internet situation in the USA is. For such a densely populated and technically advanced country it's really strange. I live in a small town in the middle part of norway, there are only a few thousand people in it. Yet I have 300/300mpbs fibrer in my house, ~75usd/month, could get 1.5gbps up/down for twice as much. Really, guys, I feel sorry for you.
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its even worse i most places. Unless you are in a city or a metro of a big city you are pretty SOL.

I mean where I live we just got ADSL that was faster than 1.3mb/192k up at the end of 2014!!!!! I had faster DSL than that at my parents house in PA back in the mid 90s! and there are tons of places how here that are still at that 1mb DSL.
 
Just to clarify - I'm not trying to brag or anything, not getting on the "hate usa" bandwagon. I am genuinely surprised at the situation. I come from a small country in eastern europe, but even there it's quite easy to get 100/100 in pretty much every city and something like 10/1 in rural areas if you have a phone line. But the again, we have a lot of competition and one can generally choose from at least 2-3 ISPs. I really hope google can steamroll through all the barriers their competitors are setting up and that it won't go from one monopoly to another monopoly (google), but will promote a healthy competition and force the older companies to actually spend the money on new hardware.
Bigbacon said:
its even worse i most places. Unless you are in a city or a metro of a big city you are pretty SOL.

I mean where I live we just got ADSL that was faster than 1.3mb/192k up at the end of 2014!!!!! I had faster DSL than that at my parents house in PA back in the mid 90s! and there are tons of places how here that are still at that 1mb DSL.
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Wow. Can't imagine doing much with 1mbps...
 
grtitan said:
Damn asshole in the white house, capitol, etc should wear sponsored-by badges.
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You mean like this?

10923783_918890304810718_431054183738066953_o.jpg
 
Koween said:
I'm quite horrified how bad the internet situation in the USA is. For such a densely populated and technically advanced country it's really strange. I live in a small town in the middle part of norway, there are only a few thousand people in it. Yet I have 300/300mpbs fibrer in my house, ~75usd/month, could get 1.5gbps up/down for twice as much. Really, guys, I feel sorry for you.
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What kind of market structure do Norway's ISP's utilize? I know in South Korea they have a single network which is run and maintained by an entity that does only that. The ISPs connect to the grid and offer their product to people and businesses. This allows many ISPs and it is why S. Korea has the best internet connectivity for its citizens. A very competitive ISP market with many ISP's to choose from creates a healthy market with low prices, excellent bandwidth and excellent customer support.
 
They should just come to the Lexington area. They'll be welcomed with open arms. I pay 75/mo for 30/5 from TWC
 
Just like with AT&T on this, Charter has valid points.

The issue that all of these companies have is that they have asked for certain permission to get around some regulations for years and were told no, however as soon as Google stated that they were considering the city they suddenly started saying that they were going to let them avoid all these regulations that everyone else has asked for years while making everyone else still follow them. They also take offense to the sudden change where if anyone wants to move their cables they can do so which is what AT&T are after them about.

I don't really see how this is slowing rollout. If Google is being forced to follow the same laws and regulations that everyone else has to follow that is being fair. As soon as new laws / regulations are made that only apply to Google and not any other company wanting to come in and offer service to people that is them showing a preferential treatment towards Google.
 
Exavior said:
Just like with AT&T on this, Charter has valid points.

The issue that all of these companies have is that they have asked for certain permission to get around some regulations for years and were told no, however as soon as Google stated that they were considering the city they suddenly started saying that they were going to let them avoid all these regulations that everyone else has asked for years while making everyone else still follow them. They also take offense to the sudden change where if anyone wants to move their cables they can do so which is what AT&T are after them about.

I don't really see how this is slowing rollout. If Google is being forced to follow the same laws and regulations that everyone else has to follow that is being fair. As soon as new laws / regulations are made that only apply to Google and not any other company wanting to come in and offer service to people that is them showing a preferential treatment towards Google.
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I don't doubt your points. And, there could be some merit to this. But, those rollouts were years ago. Some ordinances might have changed since then. I also wonder if a fiber rollout might not have as many regulations applied. Although, Charter, AT&T, etc, never helped their cause by sometimes being the only ISP in town, charging high rates, providing poor customer service, and issuing data caps. If I were sitting in a city government, I couldn't welcome Google fiber fast enough.
 
If you don't allow one compony (with similar knowledge) to work around another's lines it will just lead to the one that is currently there to place lines in such a way to block others' use.

As for the "hazing", It wouldn't surprise me one bit if it has to do with Google being fiber instead of metallic cable. Could have something to do with how the regulations are worded to allow Google to do it. If that's the case... Charter AT&T can go ahead and suck it. Considering the BS they are pulling with the low-cost internet fiasco, it serves them right to be caught by the technicalities.
 
Shotglass01 said:
I don't doubt your points. And, there could be some merit to this. But, those rollouts were years ago. Some ordinances might have changed since then. I also wonder if a fiber rollout might not have as many regulations applied. Although, Charter, AT&T, etc, never helped their cause by sometimes being the only ISP in town, charging high rates, providing poor customer service, and issuing data caps. If I were sitting in a city government, I couldn't welcome Google fiber fast enough.
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But the issue is the that ordinances only changed for Google and nobody else. If they said the new ordinance is X that would be one thing. Instead it is Charter and AT&T asking for X to happen, city keeps telling them no, Google comes through and ask for X and the city says ok for you we will say yes, but for everyone else the answer is still no. If you personally were to go try to startup an ISP there, the answer would be no for you also.

And I doubt this type of action is that uncommon, but that doesn't make it right. I know of a city doing a similar thing where they are going to make it almost impossible for the local telephone or cable company to do a single thing while basically rubber stamping any permit for a different company they as a ISP in their city. Even if this requires laws / ordinances be rewrote just for this purpose. For example they might come up with something crazy like all coax and copper wire must be no less than 489.876 cm off the ground and no more than 489.976 cm. As long as the fiber does not connect to any copper or coax networks it can be any height. That isn't something real, but the type of silliness that could happen for the hell of it. City lawyer pretty much said that if a legal method to fuck them over doesn't exist he will make one to do it.

While I think it is funny to see cities say fuck you to the cable companies and the larger telecom giants that don't give a fuck about their customers that doesn't change the fact the cities are going out of their way to give special treatment. Which isn't really right. And in this case as somebody that works in the telecommunication industry, I don't like the one touch rule that they created as that make it far to easy for somebody to fuckup somebody else's stuff with little risk. It would be different is liability was involved. For example, we have as part of our contracts for anyone that uses our poles that if we need to move their cables for pole replacement or emergency cases we can do it, however if we break anything we pay for whatever the damage is. Only exception we have is power as if the power company is using our telephone poles we don't want to personally try to move the power lines. We will make them come out and be there while we replace a pole. However for cable tv, we tell the company we are doing work and just disconnect their attachment and reconnect it. But if it comes to moving an entire row of poles or something, we aren't going to touch that.

PhotoBobBarker said:
If you don't allow one compony (with similar knowledge) to work around another's lines it will just lead to the one that is currently there to place lines in such a way to block others' use.

As for the "hazing", It wouldn't surprise me one bit if it has to do with Google being fiber instead of metallic cable. Could have something to do with how the regulations are worded to allow Google to do it. If that's the case... Charter AT&T can go ahead and suck it. Considering the BS they are pulling with the low-cost internet fiasco, it serves them right to be caught by the technicalities.
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The problem is that you don't understand what similar knowledge is. Fiber is not the same as copper which is not the same as coax which is not the same as electrical wire. Even with the others there are different requirements and standards. I can show you stuff that is falling apart because somebody didn't think that there was an issue when pulling copper to get an extra 3 inchs out of the cable by just pounding it to get just a little more slack removed from both directions. when you go through hot and cold cycles enough that connection breaks apart as you didn't leave the needed slack for the metal to contract and expand. don't have the issue with glass like you do metal. Plus as I stated above it is much different when you are financially responsible. If I can legally go cut your wires and tell you to fuck off that is your problem, there is an issue there. No IF you were required to pay for any fixes that needed to be done as the result of you breaking anything moving the wires and any reimbursement for services being down then sure it is reasonable for you to move the stuff if you should have a level of competence with that type of medium. However that isn't how they made the rule. it is if you think you can move the wire without disrupting service you can do so without any responsibility if the move doesn't go as planned. Simply saying "I didn't think that would happen" is enough to make you not responsible for any damages you cause. At the same time there is more than just AT&T and Charter that you have to look at. You have lots of ISPs going through the city. I know that Windstream, level 3 and a few others have data centers there. I am fairly certain that there is a few other actual carrier hotels there. So you could be looking at a location where you have a lot of major fiber trunks that you could break and just say ops, didn't mean to do that.
 
How can AT&T have any bitch in Louisville? They claim to have UVerse, but it's only available in like, 2 neighborhoods. I've moved all around the area, AT&T claiming UVerse in all spots, yet, I've never even seen someone with their fiber connection. Best I could ever get was a "6 mbs" dsl, and it hit around 3.
 
Kil4Thril said:
How can AT&T have any bitch in Louisville? They claim to have UVerse, but it's only available in like, 2 neighborhoods. I've moved all around the area, AT&T claiming UVerse in all spots, yet, I've never even seen someone with their fiber connection. Best I could ever get was a "6 mbs" dsl, and it hit around 3.
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Same down here. I love just 10 miles south of Lexington. They claim uverse down here, but the fastest I can get from them is 1.5Mb dsl.
 
NeghVar said:
What kind of market structure do Norway's ISP's utilize? I know in South Korea they have a single network which is run and maintained by an entity that does only that. The ISPs connect to the grid and offer their product to people and businesses. This allows many ISPs and it is why S. Korea has the best internet connectivity for its citizens. A very competitive ISP market with many ISP's to choose from creates a healthy market with low prices, excellent bandwidth and excellent customer support.
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A very similar system in Taiwan too, and the end result is that I can avail of a 100M/10M line for $30 a month, and I went with the expensive one (the ISP that maintains the lines, they have to charge high so the other ISP's that uses their lines can compete), I can easily avail of 70M/7M line for a little over $12 a month. None of them have bandwidth either (it's a very quick way to lose customers because they'd just either go to another ISP or cut the cord, since so many of us uses unlimited data plans with the numerous telecoms).

Ireland used to have Bandwidth limits, but it existed only on paper, and was never enforced (they don't charge for extras), so I was never charged for overusage. Last I heard, they ditched Bandwidth limit altogether.

Not gloating here, just stating how different things can really be for countries on either side of the pond.
 
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