Politics aside, of course.<p>The administration continues to act in removing Federal jurisdiction and regulations from being used as a tool to prevent startup organizations from entering established markets.<p>This case is a success in that it removes significant incumbent advantages. Let's hope poor behavior and sloppy work (breaking connections too frequently) doesn't become common. And shame on the incumbents using regulations for financial gain.
Interesting to see this decision today, as I was just speaking with my Google Fiber tech about their Nashville rollout.<p>Apparently there was so much heel dragging pole access, they ended up laying their fiber in tiny channels cut into the road.<p>As an aside, I also heard the channels weren't cut deep enough initially, so they were forced to go back and redo part of the work after much of it was considered complete.
Am I just grotesquely cynical that my first thought was “Pai liked this because it hurts AT&T and Comcast, not his paymasters at Verizon.”?<p>Still, good news whatever the reason. Competition is desperately needed here, even if it’s only going to be between three or four major options.
> <i>FCC Chairman Ajit Pai rejected this argument, saying that startups are unnecessarily delayed when they have to wait for incumbent ISPs before hanging wires.</i><p>I thought I was supposed to not like this guy.
This is bad. I love google fiber and see that what they are trying to do is valid but when one utility company touches another company's facilities it compromises the other facility and makes it vulnerable for service disruption.<p>But the regulation to ban or allow should not come at the Federal level. It should be governed by the utility pole owner.<p>In NYC for example con Ed owns a large number of poles. And then Verizon owns the next number of poles. Verizon and other utility companies pay ConEd based on how high their utility is placed. If it's a Verizon pole, Verizon will put their facility on the very top and spectrum will put their facility on the lower part.<p>This means that another utility company cannot just come and move someone else's facility around.