Parties At an Impasse In Nashville High-Speed Internet Utility Pole Squabble

NASHVILLE, TN — An all-day meeting between officials with the Nashville Electric Service, AT&T, Comcast and Google Fiber led by the mayor's office failed to produce on agreement on the city's process for attaching new hardware to utility poles, a seemingly-mundane piece of logistics that has threatened the much-touted deployment of Google's high-speed service in the Music City.

Under current law, every existing user of a utility pole — most of the city's poles are owned by NES, but carry wires for telephone, cable and internet service as well — must move their wiring to make room for a new user, a lengthy process.

Google is backing a council ordinance called "One Touch Make Ready" which would allow a single contractor to make the necessary changes. The ordinance faces questions of legality, but is also opposed by AT&T and Comcast.

Metro Chief Operating Officer Rich Riebeling said the mayor's team is disappointed no compromise appears to be in the offing.

"We're disappointed a compromise could not be reached tonight," Riebeling said in a statement. "While there was some positive progress to work on issues related to the speed at which fiber is rolled out in Nashville, there appears to be a philosophical disagreement between the parties about the need for and nature of legislation that would address the make ready process," Riebeling said. "Regardless of any legislation or litigation that may occur as a result of efforts to address the differences between the companies, the mayor’s office will continue to work with NES, Public Works, and all fiber providers to find improvements to the fiber deployment process that will ensure high-quality, high-speed internet service is available in all neighborhoods throughout Davidson County.”

Google's ostensible competitors AT&T and Comcast have said that a change to the pole process raises safety concerns and could disrupt their services while a competitor comes on-line. AT&T has filed a lawsuit in Louisville after that city passed One Touch Make Ready legislation.

The Metro Council deferred its consideration of the ordinance until Sept. 6.

Google Fiber is currently available in six buildings in The Gulch and the Edgehill Apartments. Officials said that failure to pass One Touch Make Ready could flummox the Fiber project altogether. Google has reportedly stopped fiber rollout in other cities while it considers switch to a wireless model.

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