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Judge Tosses Telco Suit Over City-Owned Network
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Oct 10, 2008 08:23 AM
from the why-not-sue-the-state-for-building-roads dept.
from the why-not-sue-the-state-for-building-roads dept.
tsa sends along news of the city of Monticello, Minnesota, which was sued by their local telco, Bridgewater Telephone Company, because the city chose to build a fiber optics network of their own. The judge dismissed their complaint of competition by a governmental organization. Quoting: "The judge's ruling is noteworthy for two things: (1) the judge's complete dismissal of Bridgewater Telephone Company's complaint and (2) his obvious anger at the underfunding of Minnesota's state courts. Indeed, the longest footnote in the opinion is an extended jeremiad about how much work judges are under and why it took so long to decide this case."
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Telco Appeals Minnesota City's Fiber-Optic Win 162 comments
tsa writes "In a predictable move, TDS Telecom has filed an appeal after its complaint against Monticello, Minnesota's new fiber network was tossed by a county judge in early October. As you may remember, the city decided to build its own fiber-optic network after the telco made it clear they wouldn't build it because it wouldn't be economically feasible for them. TDS Telecom then changed its mind and sued the city for unfair competition."
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Costly Waste of Time (Score:5, Insightful)
IANAL, but the second part is a warning to TDS against trying to waste more court time. The judge is saying that he's busy enough and therefore if TDS tries to revisit this, it would be another costly loss.
TDS lost a lot of money going after the city. They also lost a lot of revenue because they are now going to try and compete with the city (lol). And they lost the support of their community, who knows they sued the city for unwarranted tax dollars, and taxpayers love bailouts.
Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:5, Insightful)
Cry me a river.
They lost money.
Oh well! UPS and FedEx lose money every day competing against the government's postal service, and yet they both seem to be doing quite well. Instead of trying to use government to give Bridgewater Telephone a guaranteed monopoly, maybe they should take a page from UPS/FedEx and learn to compete.
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Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And what if I don't like either service. Where's the 3rd company? Oh, that's right, companies aren't allowed to lay their own fiber - government restriction. You call this competition?
I wouldn't say the government can prevent usage of easements for cabling. But they sure can make it a pain in the ass for the company. However, should they prevent usage of the easements, that could be fought in court. So to use easements, you should have some cash in the bank.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sweet, time to get that new "community swimming pool", which I will create by razing my neighbor's house, building it on his property, and then charge admittance to.
This is going to be awesome. I never liked his house anyway, and chicks in bikinis > fat man in sweats any day.
Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would the government arbitrarily cripple a business? Besides the fact that if they did, they would be sued.
COmpanies lay their own fiber all the time. Yes there are government rule regaurding this, but considering they need to rip up roaads, dig through property, and use the underground infrastruture that makes sense.
BTW, the 'Government' needs permission to do this as well.
I mean, really. How do you think the first company got fiber in the first place?
Yes, this is competition. And no one has to guarantee you a service the meets some standard you want...except government agencies.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, that's the market for you. The government represents the people. The people should be an equal actor in the marketplace, on the same line as a huge ugly telco.
I don't see anything wrong with that. It's called democracy and a free market (long as the telco isn't charged, you know, customs fees).
Or would you rather have a stagnant one-pony market, where the best available Internet connection is something like a 128 kbit/s ISDN that you pay per-minute _and_ per-megabyte charges for? Because that's what y
Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I ask, like the grand parent, why would the government do this? What would make them the most money: run this all by themselves (uncluding ISP services); Or rent out the bandwidth in the fibers to whatever company wants to use it? The second alternative have been used here in Sweden with great success.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're sticking to principles, but unfortunately for you the principle you've chosen isn't applicable. If your belief in free market competition had any bearing on reality, this thread wouldn't even exist, because every single dwelling on the planet with electricity would be served by 7 ultra-broadband Internet connections that the occupant could choose between on a whim. Manifestly this is not the case, so it's reasonable to question your assumptions.
First, is the market in question free? No, it isn't.
Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:5, Insightful)
"This, of course, assumes that the government can do a better job with its limited knowledge, expertise, and equipment."
Its not hard today to throw a rock and hit an able network/systems admin or three and many good ones who live locally might be willing to take a slight pay cut to avoid the commute into MSP or just for the fact a govt job is a much less stressful place than private industry.
"I find it hard to imagine that running fiber around is cheaper, but it must mean that their city buildings are right next door to each other or on the same block."
Cheaper than what? its probably slightly cheaper for them than the teleco's (after all they can way speed up their own permit process). And they seem to be reasonably densely populated (and small) for such a move
Area
- Total 6.2 sq mi (16.1 km)
Population (2000)
- Total 11,414
- Density 1,264.6/sq mi (488.3/km)
Actually its pretty densely populated (and small)
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"There are few things that I have experienced the government doing better than a competitive private sector."
I generally agree with this but when a government *wants* to do something like this I prefer its a local government and not the state or federal.
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Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:5, Informative)
*sigh* YOU just made me lose some mod points. But nevermind. Since 1970s, Memphis Light Gas and Water has been running power cables with FIBER inside. In other words, the entire city is full of dark fiber. How much extra did it cost to run the fiber? Not that much, just the incremental cost over what it cost to have power lines that were empty in the middle, instead of being filled with fiber.
What is to stop this city from doing the same thing? It probably already did that, and that is why it feels that it can provide fiber to the house.
Just because *YOU* don't have experience does not mean that your experience is right. People working in government agencies do not start their day thinking how they can be inefficient for you.
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Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:5, Funny)
People working in government agencies do not start their day thinking how they can be inefficient for you.
Some things come naturally.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Most government agencies are not inefficient at all, and have less waste then private industries.
A bureaucracy is very good at getting complex things done well.
Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:5, Informative)
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Hardly the first time American interests have abused NAFTA to the detriment of Canadians.
Other examples: softwood lumber, taking water from the Great Lakes, crippling our attempts to enforce environmental standards [globalpolicy.org], and my current favourite... American private health providers arguing our public health system violates NAFTA [embassymag.ca].
Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, and the cost to send mail would go through the roof.
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Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:5, Insightful)
If the government got out of the business of providing a poor, unprofitable service, businesses with an interest in profit could take over and make them profitable, more efficient, and more reliable.
More likely private industry would take over the profitable routes dropping all the unprofitable ones, making the service much worse than it already is.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
For any competent private company, it is very easy to compete with the city. Hence the original suit.
Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There is, but there's essentially nothing you can do about it, its a flaw in the system that can't be fixed short of catapulting lawyers that ignore ethics requirements into outer space.
Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:5, Informative)
It's called loser-pays. We have it up here in Canada, that and less lawsuits.
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Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:5, Insightful)
This was no waste of money.
They didn't "lose" money on the lawsuit. They "made an investment". The whole point of the lawsuit was to give them a head-start in the competition against the city. They just wanted to tie the cities coffers so they could start their fiber roll-out before the city did. They succeeded in this goal, so their "investment" paid off big time for them.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Have they started rolling out fiber?
Because I know if I were a big wig in this city and this company was stopping this project, I would make a point of having their permit applications for fiber installation conveniently "lost" behind various pieces of office furniture.
If this gave the telco an opportunity to get ahead its only because the city didn't play hardball.
Re: (Score:3)
Not much different from what the telco is trying to do with the courts. They stopped the government from providing a service to its citizens. A service that, presumably, the citizens want.
Its the Telco that is clearly in the wrong here.
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Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:4, Insightful)
If the demand is high enough
Dude, America has one hell of a lot of rural areas where demand does not meet financial justification. This is exactly why the gov't passed a bill a few years ago to provide something like $200 million in incentives to have telecos service rural areas. The gov't recognized the criticality of decent internet service for US competition in world markets and therefore provided great financial benefits for telecos to run broadband to rural areas. The telecos took the cash and ran. Why is it OK for the telecos to take cash dedicated to a specific cause and screw the taxpayers but it's evil for the government to say "if you don't do it, we will"? There are some cases (and in this case, MANY very compelling cases) where the government is completely justified in offering services to force competition where none exists today and none is likely in the foreseeable future. If this teleco was the only decent game in town, they might wake up and realize that they are not immune from competition.
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While the economy fails, we still have grammar (Score:5, Informative)
A jeremiad is by definition an "extended critique".
May the Grammar Nazis have mercy on you.
Government could have fought back (Score:5, Interesting)
I imagine that the telco must have had to get permits to lay their own fiber. The government could have blocked those requests until the result of the case was decided, thus cancelling-out the telco's attempt to delay the government and get a head start. I wonder why this didn't happen?
Re:Government could have fought back (Score:4, Interesting)
Because blocking legitimate requests for development is generally not allowed. I know California has strict time limits for certain actions, and if no action is taken within a given period, there is the possibility for legal repercussions.
In other words, a jurisdiction can't just say "we don't like it, go away" or "wait until we have what we want." There have to be actual grounds to put something on hold, or even more to deny a project all-together.
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Re:Government could have fought back (Score:4, Insightful)
Which would actually support the plaintiff's assertion that the government is abusing its regulatory powers to secure an unfair competitive advantage.
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Re:Government could have fought back (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably because there was no reason to deny them the permits they needed. To do so would have been a corrupt, let alone shitty, thing to do.
I don't know about the rest of the world, however, if I were a city entity involved in a lawsuit with a telco company, I'm going to do everything in my power to be seen as treating people (especially those suing me) as fairly as possible. You don't want to get a pissed off judge any ammunition to use in his/her making an example of you. That, and it's just the right thing to do, and I wish more people felt that way.
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Re:Government could have fought back (Score:4, Insightful)
How's it working out for you having your government take a "hands off" approach to your banks? (assuming you are an American).
Ted Rogers was on CBC the other day, and made a comment about how when he was sitting on a board of a bank, there was one bank regulator (govt official) for every member of the bank at all the bank meetings. He said he didn't understand the need for the government oversight until now.
My personal belief is that the government (the people, remember) should own ALL the infrastructure and license it to private service providers. I know it isn't perfect, but I feel it is the best. Businesses have one goal, making a profit. Governments have (or should have) one goal, providing a service to the constituents.
That's what I like about Canada. Now if we can only just elect a majourity government so we can get something done instead of just arguing...
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
How's it working out for you having your government take a "hands off" approach to your banks? (assuming you are an American).
Clue yourself in. The subprime crisis was caused by government intervention, not by any "hands off" approach. Just because people can co-opt the word "deregulation" for their own purposes doesn't mean any less regulation is occurring. Check out this excellent article written 8 years ago that predicted the whole thing, down to the huge dollar amount:
The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedown That Bodes Ill for Cities [city-journal.org]
Right. A single cause for a multi-trillion dollar meltdown. If only it were that [npr.org] simple [motherjones.com]. Rather than try to pin the whole thing on the CRA, perhaps you might also want to look into the Commodity Futures Modernization Act as well, which deregulated the type of insurance (credit default swaps) that banks were using to allow themselves to make the insane loans they were making. The CRA may have been misguided and caused some more risky loans to be made, but it certainly didn't, on its own, lead to lenders
I know. (Score:5, Funny)
Missing the main point... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet...
This gives other community precedence in other lawsuits across the nation.
Once one telco falls, hopefully the other lawsuits will fall also, just like a row of dominos.
What every telco wants... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
What a load of crap. TDS was doing their dog-in-the-manger act, and now is only putting in fiber as an act of revenge.
Business as usual at $US_PHONE_COMPANY
I'm surprised... (Score:5, Informative)
Usually a smart telco doesn't sue, they simply bribe the legislature [acluutah.org] into restricting their municipal competition (bottom of page).
(Basically, Comcast and Qwest bribed the Utah legislature into stopping their multi-muni competitor, UTOPIA, in Utah. The Utah ACLU's letter against such action is here: http://www.acluutah.org/utopia.htm [acluutah.org])
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
jeremiad ? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:jeremiad ? (Score:5, Funny)
your decision to gerrymander on the subject is an aloof attempt to cause disruptive comprehension of the litigous subjects in question.
rawr.
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Thank you, Judge! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Boo fricken hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know why legalizing prostitution would reduce it, but we've had some positive effects since it was legalized here in Germany. Prostitutes now can get proper health insurance and have legal recourse against pimps (as pimping still is illegal). We didn't legalize prostitution to keep people from going to prostitutes; we legalized prostitution to improve the situation of the prostitutes. As far as I know it helped.
As for legalizing hemp: Yup, I agree there. Legalization would reduce most issues: It wouldn't be as much of an entry drug because you wouldn't buy it from dealers anymore. Hemp consumption wouldn't mean automatically providing money to criminals anymore. Legalization would allow regulation, which would lead to quality controls and thus better quality for the consumers*. Long-term studies would be easier. The situation for addicts would improve as there would be less social and legal danger involved in getting professional help.
Of course it's still a War On Something so we can't expect it to ever end.
* Wow, a sentence where I use the word "consumer" without feeling dirty.
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