Charter Joins AT&T In Using Lawsuits To Try And Slow Down Google Fiber
from the glass-mansions dept
For decades, incumbent broadband ISPs have all but owned state legislatures, often to the point where they're quite literally allowed to write awful state law that actively harms state consumers. That's why it has proven amusing to see these same ISPs cry like petulant children at Google Fiber's disruption of the uncompetitive broadband market. AT&T, for example, has sued Louisville and Nashville for passing pole attachment reform that would speed up broadband deployment, all while claiming that doing so gives Google Fiber an unfair advantage.Enter freshly-mega-merged Charter Communications, which has also now filed a different lawsuit against Louisville (pdf) under a Charter-owned subsidiary named Insight Kentucky Partners II -- claiming that its Constitutional rights are being violated. Why? Because Lousiville struck a better franchise deal with Google Fiber than the one Charter signed years ago. Charter tries to defend saddling Louisville with a lawsuit using basketball metaphors in comments to the Louisville Courier Journal:
"The current situation is like requiring the University of Louisville to use the NBA 3-point line, while its opponents use the closer college line," said Mike Pedelty, a Charter spokesman. "More burdensome regulation inevitably means a higher cost to do business and ultimately higher prices for customers. We're simply asking the court to ensure the equal treatment state and federal law require."Here's the thing though: Google Fiber got a better franchise deal from the city because it asked for it -- and because it promised to deliver gigabit broadband competition to the city. There's a reason cities are throwing themselves (and better deals) at Google Fiber, and Charter hopes you'll forget it's because Charter just doesn't try very hard thanks to little competition and the regulatory capture it spent 30 years lobbying for. Charter could negotiate a better deal once its current franchise contract expires, but hopes that legal threats will allow the cable giant to get out of its obligations more quickly.
Charter's lawsuit also again tries to claim that pole attachment reform -- often used by incumbent ISPs as yet another way to slow new market entrants (there's more detail here) -- will cause all manner of horrible technical and PR harm to larger ISPs:
The One-Touch procedures also could allow Insight’s competitors (intentionally or unintentionally) to damage or disrupt Insight’s ability to serve its customers, creating an inaccurate perception in the market about Insight’s service quality and harming its goodwill. These procedures also threaten public safety as Insight is responsible for providing service to critical infrastructure in Louisville Metro, in addition to its customers’ access to 911 and other emergency services. And they intrude upon the exclusive jurisdiction of the Public Service Commission of Kentucky to regulate the use of privately-owned utility poles.It's certainly understandable that Charter wants the same deal that Google Fiber is getting, and it's all but inevitable it would have gotten it. But it's disingenuous and obnoxious to spend a generation lobbying for and enjoying regulatory capture -- only to whine once an actual competitor comes to town and begins dismantling the status quo. Charter could just get to work competing with Google Fiber -- but as one of the least liked companies in any industry in America -- it apparently feels that it makes much more sense to whine and litigate.
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Filed Under: broadband, fiber, google fiber, kentucky, louisville
Companies: charter communications, google
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Charter wants true competition
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* an extra $9.95 item on your Charter bill
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This is why the Founding Fathers of America setup a free-market economy. We have long turned it into something else entirely. While it is true that as long as there is an iota of government involvement with economy it cannot be truly free, but we can certainly get very close to it will only implementing strong anti-trust & anti-monopoly laws/regulation ONLY.
Right now we are in the midst of very strong regulatory capture environment. Sadly most people are not functionally capable of even realizing. Like a person that grows up in a fucked up society... they have no idea how fucked up they are until they step back and look at ALL the fucking insanity going on.
I do not think Americans are even comprehending more than 10% or at most 20% of what is going wrong.
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Free Market gave America its financial supremacy. There is maybe 1% or less of the population old enough that has seen a free market. We are long, LONG fucking gone from those times.
How about instead you tell me how regulation is saving anything? Hard to do so with so much bullshit proving you otherwise, but it will not stop you or others from being ignorant about it.
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Free Market .. never was and never will be, it is a construct of the mind in order to conceptualize a hypothetical situation.
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https://on-t-internet.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/once-more-with-feeling-anarchy-doesnt.html
Free markets can't exist, not because of government regulations, but because incumbents won't let them.
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The US Government is straight up "for sale" and the Americans are ONLY voting in more Salespeople.
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Uh, so? I mean, it's a free market, isn't it? Don't we have the best politicians money can buy?
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Ultimately enforced at the end of a gun by gangs of highway robbers with badges.
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A more appropriate analogy
Google is the new kid on the team who is getting the ball more often at the expense of the previous "star" (really, the only one who can even dribble the ball without turning it over): the coach's kid (Charter). The coach wants to win, and his kid wouldn't be considered good enough to make most other teams, but there's no real competition here. So he's instructed his guys to get the ball to Google.
Now the whiny, entitled brat is bitching to the crowd that his scoring average is reduced, even though he's not playing any worse (if that were even possible). He's been around longer, and his group of friends don't think it's fair, but much of the crowd can see the difference, so there aren't many sympathetic ears.
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Like the old commercial says...
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It's stifling competition plain and simple.
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Lawsuit update.
Then comes the hammer. Google Fiber brings in 3 Lawyers to side with Louisville Uzelac, Devine, and Simeone. It looks like the next thing to expect is AT&T's response 10/24 to Louisville's response to AT&T's motion for summary judgement. Then AT&T reply is due 10/31 to the Cross motion.
So the slug fest will continue. In the end, I suspect AT&T, Charter, and Frontier will all be forced to accept OTMR or other legislation to share the poles and be nice neighbors to new market entries.
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Re: Lawsuit update.
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Unfortunately, most local governments have already given that away to the incumbents. In other words, most people have already been sold out by their local governments. All they can do now is bend over and take it.
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