There are few cities in the United States which have benefited from the very high speed Google Fiber. It has brought access to people who didn’t have a provider or who couldn’t afford the service. It has provided competition in the High Speed Internet providers in those cities.
Google has run into a few challenges while bringing high speed to residents. They currently have to dig trenches and make new access points to install Google Fiber. They do not have access to the utility pools or some of the other infrastructure that the cable and phone companies have daily.
Austin C. Schlick, Director of Communications Law for Google, sent a letter to the FCC. The letter stated that if Google’s Internet and Television services with Google Fiber were declared a Title II Utility, then it would help promote the spread of High Speed Internet and competition. Title II would give Google the access to the use the Utility poles, ducts, and conduits, that they are currently denied.
Google Fiber, for instance, offers its Basic Internet service on a standalone basis and its Gigabit Internet service alone or in conjunction with an Internet Protocol video service that is not traditional cable TV, so it lacks federal access rights pursuant to Section 224.4 If BIAS were classified as a telecommunications service, however, then the statutory right of access to utility infrastructure would extend to all providers of BIAS, regardless of what services they otherwise provide.
Timely and affordable access to available utility infrastructure is essential for rapid, widespread broadband deployment. The National Broadband Plan identified providers’ access to infrastructure as key to further deployment of high-quality, highspeed broadband. Shared use of existing infrastructure pursuant to Section 224 also helps to minimize the aesthetic and public safety concerns that arise when new entrants must deploy duplicative poles or dig their own, redundant trenches to build a network. (FFC.Gov)
The letter goes on and discussed the barriers that new providers like Google Fiber faces. Access to the infrastructure would remove some of the barriers facing competition for internet providers.
It is implied that if Google Fiber and other providers are declared to be Title II Service and granted rights to use the existing poles and access then Google Fiber could spread faster and more efficiently. This could provide the needed competition and in some areas high speed internet access that doesn’t currently have it.
(Via Engadget)
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