AT&T says Google Fiber’s bad info delayed pole attachments

AT&T claims that Google Fiber’s call for a one-touch-make-ready ordinance to streamline the process of stringing fiber on poles in Nashville (TN) could compromise the telecommunication company's own facilities because Google often provides incorrect information about where it is looking to attach its facilities. A proposed ordinance would allow Google Fiber to move existing Comcast and AT&T cables itself on utility poles owned by Nashville Electric Services (NES). This would circumvent the old make-ready rules that require Google Fiber to notify NES of the need to make space for its cables, only to have NES contact AT&T and Comcast to execute the actual work. Instead of waiting to see when AT&T’s union workforce is available, Google Fiber would be able to choose its own contractors.

Google Fiber has established a nationwide contract with AT&T to attach its facilities to the poles the telco owns. However, AT&T looks at each attachment process city by city. Joelle Phillips, president of AT&T Tennessee, said that while it is not concerned about Google Fiber’s ability to find experienced contractors to conduct the make ready work, the relatively new service provider continues to submit incorrect information about the poles. “Let’s assume they hire the very best contractors, if they give those engineering plans that we get in our application to that contractor I know that’s work that’s going to be done all over again,” Phillips said. “I am seeing many of those that have errors in them that would be corrected so it’s really not so much that they would hire bad contractors but that they might give them bad instructions.” After filing an application, AT&T does a field survey to make sure the pole matches the engineering drawings they have done.