Only YOU Can Protect Net Neutrality

[JacobDaddy]

The way it reads is that if Google gets classified as a utility, then pole/infrastructure owners have to give them access. Not without compensation of course, but I can't support another company being forced to provide another company access to infrastructure (not just poles) that they installed.

But with the same regard then OG&E and AT&T could come up with an agreement that would prevent TDS, Cox or whoever from accessing their poles, then they would have to set their own poles, now imagine 6 sets of telephone poles every hundred yards. I don't want to look at that!

I don't like the idea of one company being forced to do business with another either, but there has to be some kind of a way to achieve the results that are desired. I would like to have Google Fiber to my house, I have a 1Gb connection at work and pay $76,000/year. But that connection is also routed to 8,000 devices. We rarely hit the limits of our internet connection. Now if I had that kind of speed at home! Holy cow! What could I do (or not do)!

 

[Hobbes]

But with the same regard then OG&E and AT&T could come up with an agreement that would prevent TDS, Cox or whoever from accessing their poles, then they would have to set their own poles, now imagine 6 sets of telephone poles every hundred yards. I don't want to look at that!

I don't like the idea of one company being forced to do business with another either, but there has to be some kind of a way to achieve the results that are desired. I would like to have Google Fiber to my house, I have a 1Gb connection at work and pay $76,000/year. But that connection is also routed to 8,000 devices. We rarely hit the limits of our internet connection. Now if I had that kind of speed at home! Holy cow! What could I do (or not do)!

Besides how ugly it would be, everyone's rates would skyrocket to install redundant sets of poles.
Even OGE rates would increase because they wouldn't have the revenue stream from their poles.
Imagine the aftermath of an ice storm or tornado.

 

[SMS]

So, at the core of it the government is still forcing one company to share it's resources...just because we like the end result, cheap and/or highspeed internet, doesn't make it right. If OG&E wants to sell space on their poles or Cox wants to sell space in a ductbank, that should be up to them.

My neighbor has a bitchin' panel truck that I could use for my electrical install business and I could charge cheaper rates if I was able to use it. Doesn't make sense to have two panel trucks in my neighborhood and I don't want to buy one anyway so I want Uncle Same to force him to rent it to me whenever I want it...

 

[Hobbes]

The government is selling access, easements, to utilities and in the interest of the taxpayers require sharing of those resourses.
I mean OGE didn't buy the land their poles are on along city streets.

 

[SMS]

The government is selling access, easements, to utilities and in the interest of the taxpayers require sharing of those resourses.
I mean OGE didn't buy the land their poles are on along city streets.

That's a good point

 

[Mike_60]

Google wants broadband classified as a regulated utility, like other regulated services, which then would force incumbents to open up their networks to non incumbent service providers (like them). Then they would get to play in the big time by piggybacking on the incumbents dime. If that happened, you would see all network growth from every major player come to a screeching halt. Probably, around 40 billion a year in capitol investments would simply dry up for a few years while everything was ironed out in the courts, or worse, be moved into investments out of the country.

 

[Mike_60]

The government is selling access, easements, to utilities and in the interest of the taxpayers require sharing of those resourses.
I mean OGE didn't buy the land their poles are on along city streets.

But they pay property tax every year on every pole, cross bar, cable, guy wire, and anchor.

 

[Hobbes]

But they pay property tax every year on every pole, cross bar, cable, guy wire, and anchor.

But they don't pay property tax on the land their poles are on and that is what the real resource is.
If they had to buy that land it might be different.
Most of it is private land with an easement provision.

 

[Mike_60]

A ROW is available to anybody who the government decides can use it. The land isn't a resource because it isn't given over to any company by the government. The deed owners own the land but the government retains control over the use of the land. The only thing the companies own are the facilities crossing the land, at least until it's abandoned. There is usually plenty enough room for whoever wants to put cable in it to do it. But it's expensive to place a pole line, or to bore which is more common these days, but it's the cost of doing business. Unless, you want to take the cheap route and cry "unfair" so you can get access to the facilities that have already been placed by those before you. If Google really wants to play they should pay their own way and not cry to the FCC to get access to everybody else' facilities.

 

[Hobbes]

The way I see it a local government entity is infringing on a private landowners property rights in the interest of the common good.
The property owner pays the property taxes and loses some of the use of his land, tho he still has to mow around those poles regardless.
Is it to much to ask that if a property owners land rights are infringed upon it should be in a responsible way that impinges his property rights in the least way? By sharing it?
Does he have to allow 5 sets of poles on his land because that is in the interests of corporations infringing on his land?