Judge Tosses Telco Suit Over City-Owned Network 281
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."
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.
Re:Government could have fought back (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Costly Waste of Time (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: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:I'm surprised... (Score:3, Interesting)
TDS Telecom (Score:1, Interesting)
I used to work for TDS. It doesnt surprise me that they would try a sneaky underhanded approach like suing the city while they start their own fiber network. TDS quite possibly has some of the worst quality of service Ive seen from an ISP. Their standard line is "Send them a new modem" even if its their equipment at the head end that is junk. They oversell their bandwidth all the time resulting in customers calling and saying they have a 3 meg connection, but can barely pull 1 meg tops. Their sales staff only compounds the issue by trying to boost everyone connection up as high as possible and then breaking their connection because their line cant handle a 4 meg connection because TDS never updates any of their hardware.
TDS is just another bad ISP/Telco that wants to maintain their monopoly on whatever they have. I personally hope that every citizen in that town gets their service from the town, dropping TDS like a bad habit.
More like brilliant ploy to spur development (Score:1, Interesting)
If I was the mayor of a small town, I might use this sort of thing to my advantage.
1- Announce plan to roll out municipal/residential fiber network.
2- Sell enough bonds for stage 1 of the project. Naturally, that would pay for linking any city buildings and schools.
3- Goad local telco into suing the city, delaying the municipal project while they roll out their own project.
4- Make press releases as to schedule of when residential roll-out will be done.
5- Once local telco has a significant subscriber base, drop the residential project as too costly.
6- PROFIT!!! for the telco. I make press releases cheering how I avoided needlessly growing local government and publicly praising the local telco for their visionary (and affordable) residential fiber Internet service.
Re:Government could have fought back (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:1, Interesting)
No, he didn't say anything about convenience. He said why shouldn't, same language you are using. As in, what is a reason that government should not provide services. And you have no answer other than "They shouldn't". I guess if you can't defend your position with reasons, attack the other person's stance on bullshit morality issues, huh.
Dipshit
Re:Costly Waste of Time (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:Costly Waste of Time (Score:2, Interesting)
On one side we want any company to be able to lay down their own line as to help competition and bring prices down for the consumer.
While possible, there are many governing bodies there to protect other's line and the government's property as well as your well being. Something no one is going to object to.
While I worked testing fiber lines in Los Angeles, it was a real treat to learn about the actual infrastructure and laws of the land. The lines I worked on were from huntington park to Down Town Level 3 (head terminals). Some parts of fiber had to be replaced so I was present when some of that work was done.
The sewers here aren't like the one's the ninja turtles use. They have man hole covers for access and vary in size and depth. Although deep and used for many purposes, telco cables are run high to protect from water or other possible damage.
So while other companies adding their cable to the existing infrastructure may sound easy, it's actually pretty difficult. You need to drill new "tunnels" from point to point while taking care not to damage existing tunnels or cables (in my case fiber trunks).
The city on the other hand would have the best and easiest access to all that is necessary. As my company was a 3rd or 4th generation hand me down receiver of the contract. It's REALLY scary if you ask me, that the van we worked out of had 3 magnetic signs that you slap on the side depending on what job you're doing!
Another thing to take into consideration are the terminals. Where do you put them? One was located in an unusable storage area. It was pretty big inside, but getting inside was very difficult because the door was small and you had to turn to the left immediately. I don't know how they got the racks in there (had to be in pieces). And in an area such as LA there isn't a whole lot of free space.
So any company who is willing to pay for all of this and become approved to do so has to find more space for their terminals.
Ideally, it is best to have several companies providing similar services because we benefit and technologies and approaches to problems are figured out much faster. But it can't be at break neck speed nor completely controlled by the gov't either.
Verizon has been getting a lot of crap over them not replacing or upgrading worn out copper systems. In rural areas where the cost is much more than they'll recover in fees they just ignore customers.
Hopefully wireless will become the reality and provide sufficient bandwitdh for inet AND VoIP. Then you could possibly have much much more competition!
P.S. I think i wrote too much
Re:Costly Waste of Time (Score:2, Interesting)
"What prompted this city to provide a network?"
This is the part that is missing from the summary.
YEARS AGO, the city asked Bridgewater to provide internet access to it's citizens. Bridgewater SAID NO. (most likely because it did a financial analysis and felt it wouldn't make enough money ).
AFTER Bridgewater declined to provide this service, the city then looked at other options for it's citizens to get access to the internet.
The city studied the problem, and came to the conclusion that it could install the infrastructure and provide really fast access to the internet at a reasonable monthly rate itself.
The city held a referendum, and the citizens voted for the plan to proceed.
It took out a bond to pay for installing the infrastructure.
It was only when the city was about to break ground, that Bridgewater did a 180, by suing the city to delay the installation, rushing it's trucks there to start install their own Fibre, and saying that the city would unfairly compete with them.
This lawsuit is for two reasons:
-to try to keep small rural cities from providing internet access themselves, so Bridgewater can eventually expand to those cities, if Bridgewater ever decides to
-to prevent the foothold of a small rural city providing internet access at a reasonable rate, so other small cities, where Bridgewater is gouging for crappy internet access, don't get the idea of doing it themselves.