There have been strong opinions on both side of the fight over utility poles in Nashville.
And they started with this: a slower-than-expected roll out of Google Fiber.
The apartments with Fiber installed appear in blue. The rest are still waiting a year and a half after work began. Google said out of the 44,000 poles it needs to attach to in order to bring Fiber to Nashville, only 33 have been made ready.
Whether the issue has called for a new ordinance in Metro Nashville is what the major fight is all about.
"We should be spending our time talking about all those ideas that might make the process work more efficiently [instead of changing the law]," said AT&T Tennessee President Joelle Phillips, who has been against a proposed bill.
In August, negotiations between Google, AT&T, NES, and Comcast fell flat. Reportedly all parties were interested in a pilot program to test options to speed up the process, except one.
Those involved said Google was only willing to discuss one option: changing the law. And an ordinance has been something many council members said has been very popular among residents.
Click here to read the letter from Google to the community.
"We've certainly gotten hundreds of emails from supporters of One Touch Make Ready," said bill sponsor and Council member Anthony Davis."That's why I feel Nashville is behind the bill."
Companies like Comcast and AT&T, which have their own fiber programs, have been unwilling to entertain supporting the ordinance. They cite safety concerns, issues with service disruptions and taking work away from union workers as major arguments against it.
"We all have unique technologies, the technology is changing all the time," said Phillips. "The idea that we'll be able to send one contractor to a pole and they will be able to magically expedite this process without causing problems like service interruptions, without causing problems like safety concerns, is unrealistic."
Read a blog post from AT&T slamming the proposal
The key to understanding the issue is understanding that wireless internet is anything but wireless. Your internet, cable and telephone service all run through thousands of miles of wires that live both underground and in utility poles that eventually reach your house.
And utility poles in Nashville are full of wires that belong to a multitude of companies. To add another provider, like Google, to the Nashville area, all those companies must move their wires in order to make the pole ready for Google to add its own. It's a process that can take months.
The ordinance would allow Google to select one team from an approved list of contractors to move everyone's equipment instead. That's where the "one touch" comes into play.
"If we did have a bad vendor they could be removed from the list of approved subcontractors," Davis said, highlighting amendments proposed after L3 Communications came out in support of the bill.
At least 17 council members are co-sponsors. They want Google to bring more competition to the Nashville market, and they worry Google could pull out if the ordinance does not pass. Google representatives have indicated they may leave Nashville if the process is not viably profitable in the near future.
But AT&T, which owns thousands of local poles, said Google always knew it would take a long time to cover the Metro area with Fiber. In fact, it's in their contract.
"We have a contract that sets out some time tables that worked for Google," Phillips said. "At least we thought they did when we agreed to the contract."
She said their contract allows each company to take 45 days to do its part.
Complicating matters has been a jurisdiction issue that could change the course of this debate. AT&T said the process is regulated by the FCC, not local governments. If an ordinance passes, AT&T would likely sue Metro Nashville as it currently is in Louisville over a similar ordinance.
"I don’t think we can worry about that," Davis said. "I think we just have to make the best policy decisions as far as like how we move lines on each of our poles."
Council has planned to take up the issue for a second reading September 6 at 6:30 p.m. Companies on both sides of the argument have been reaching out to their supporters to attend.
