[olug] Google Fiber home Internet sevice RFI

[James Ringler]

Sam Tetherow wrote:
> There isn't any state law that I am aware of that prohibits you from 
> laying your own infrastructure.  There are hoops that have to be 
> jumped through to get ROW from the municipality, but part of the 
> deregulation of telco services was for just this purpose.
>
> I know for instance that Three Rivers Telephone "coppered over" Qwest 
> in Ainsworth.  Unite fiber in Lincoln has their own fiber loop that is 
> outside of Windstream's network.  Time Warner's cable network is 
> outside of Windstream in Lincoln, yet both offer voice and internet.  
> I also know that for a while Lincoln was trying to find another cable 
> provider to compete against TW.  The reason that it doesn't happen 
> very often is that it is horribly expensive to do it and if you don't 
> have a captive audience (the only provider) it is hard to make the 
> numbers work.
>
> Sam Tetherow
> Sandhills Wireless


They passed a law about 10 years ago that prohibited municipal entities 
from becoming an ISP.    Windstream and Time Warner lobbied for the law 
since TW was in the process of launching Road Runner.   At the time, LES 
had the entire city laced with fiber and TW was worried that if LES 
could light it up, TW would lose their back side.   The law never was 
lifted off the books.  At that time we were working on fiber to the 
desktop in Waverly..  since they were booming with industry 
development.   Our plans were quickly shattered

Here's a link that shows Nebraska being on the ban. 

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/01/municipal-fiber-needs-more-fdr-localism-fewer-state-bans.ars