Megan Barry seeks 'resolution' from Google Fiber, AT&T, Comcast

Mayor Megan Barry wants three rival internet giants to convene and find a solution as the companies battle over a proposed change to the city's utility pole policy that Google Fiber now says its expansion into Nashville could hinge on.

Citing “confusion and uncertainty” over the so-called One Touch Make Ready ordinance backed by Google Fiber, Barry called on Nashville Electric Service CEO and President Decosta Jenkins and Metro Department of Law Director Jon Cooper to take the lead in convening all stakeholders, including Google Fiber, AT&T and Comcast, to find a resolution.

"High-speed broadband service is critical to the city of Nashville's future," Barry, who has remained noncommittal on the ordinance, wrote in a memo to Jenkins and Cooper on Monday. “A resolution to this issue that is fair to all will only benefit our citizens."

Her appeal came as top officials from the three companies appeared at a special joint meeting of the council’s Budget and Finance and Public Works committees Monday night to discuss the One Touch Make Ready ordinance.

At the request of lead bill sponsor Councilman Anthony Davis, who cited lingering questions from colleagues, the committees voted to recommend deferring the ordinance by one meeting to the council’s Sept. 6 agenda. The bill had been slated for a critical second of three votes on Tuesday.

The ordinance, which mirrors a measure that recently passed in Louisville, Ky., seeks to address what Google Fiber officials describe as a cumbersome process to attach its cables onto utility poles.

Under current law, existing providers AT&T and Comcast must move their own lines before a new provider can add another cable. The ordinance would give Google Fiber, or any other provider seeking to add a line, the ability to hire an approved vendor to move all the lines at the same time. Google has said the move would prevent closing roads and sidewalks multiple times for work on the same pole.

During a meeting that stretched nearly three hours, officials from AT&T and Comcast disagreed with Google Fiber on the need for the policy change. AT&T and Comcast raised safety, liability and legal concerns. Meanwhile, a representative of Google framed the ordinance in stark terms when asked about a worst-case scenario if the ordinance does not pass.

Chris Levendos, head of network deployment and operations of Google Fiber, said inaction by the council would either delay the company’s rollout here or stop it altogether.

“Worst-case scenario is either elongation or it just ceases to happen,” Levendos said.

Those comments marked the most blunt statement to date by Google regarding a proposal that Levendos also said would “drive efficiency and drive competition” among internet providers in Nashville.

“People in Nashville are looking for choice and competition and want the opportunity to have the best available services,” he said. “They want to have companies competing for them, and this ordinance created the opportunity to propel that further for any investor that would want to build a small or large network here in Nashville.”

But officials from Comcast and AT&T — the latter of which owns 20 percent of the city’s utility poles, compared with 80 percent that are owned by NES — said Monday that the current pole process exists for a reason as they warned of ramifications if it is changed.

“We appreciate your interest in letting us talk to each other to work it out, and we hope that you recognize that this is not a process that is needlessly complex,” Joelle Phillips, president of AT&T Tennessee, told the council. “It’s a process where people can get hurt when things aren’t done correctly. Service gets interrupted when things aren’t done correctly.”

In a clear dig at Google Fiber, she later said AT&T disagrees with the “assumption that a party that’s new can diagnose the problem and the solution.”

Andy Macke, vice president of government and community affairs for Comcast, said that Comcast’s experience with a One Touch Make Ready policy overseen by Google Fiber in another market has produced a “50 percent failure rate.”

“The reality is nobody’s going to care for your stuff like you do,” he said. “One Touch does remove a private ownership and caring for network activities. The policy results in diminished accountability for activity in the rights of way. And because of what we’ve already seen from a failure rate, I can tell you that it’s not going to diminish traffic, it will only increase traffic.”

With the delay, Davis, who represents parts of East Nashville on the council, said he hopes council members can look further into legal questions with the ordinance as well as the impact of union workers who are contracted by AT&T to handle utility pole work.

Don Hill, chief engineer of NES, called the ordinance “workable” in its current form but said it’s in the best interest of Nashville to find a policy that all three players can live with.

Google Fiber first announced plans in January 2015 to expand into Nashville, but the rollout effort has proved slower than expected. Nashville’s hard limestone soil has meant Google Fiber has to rely on utility poles instead of underground for 90 percent of the company’s planned 3,200 miles of fiber.

Though the legislation has 16 co-sponsors in the council, wary council members have had pause about potentially reducing work for AT&T pole workers, who are represented by CWA Local 3808, among other issues.

The deferral comes amid a national media report that Google Fiber is rethinking its fiber internet strategy after the company has hit roadblocks in various cities, including Nashville. The Wall Street Journal reported that Google is turning to wireless technology for gigabit speed internet connections in several cities after the effort to expand its fiber network has been costlier and taken longer than anticipated.

In a legal analysis last week, Metro Council attorney Mike Jameson raised possible legal issues regarding the One Touch Make Ready proposal and whether the city has the authority to enforce the bill, or whether the privately owned AT&T poles fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission.

AT&T cited similar issues in a lawsuit against the city of Louisville after that municipality approved a One Touch Make Ready policy.

Reach Joey Garrison at 615-259-8236 and on Twitter @joeygarrison. Reach Jamie McGee at 615-259-8071 and on Twitter @jamiemcgee_.