Nashville Wants The Court To Dismiss Comcast’s Lawsuit

Comcast Corporation had earlier filed a lawsuit to overturn the rules, which were designed to speed up the Google Fiber deployment. The Nashville metro government recently asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit filed by the telecom company.

The move to dismiss the lawsuit was filed by Nashville at the US District Court in Tennessee, by stating that the telecom company inaccurately alleged that the rules of Nashville are preempted by both Federal and state law. The case filed by Comcast is actually about the “One Touch Make Ready” rule designed by Nashville, which gives internet service providers faster access to the utility poles.

One Touch Make Ready is also referred to as “Climb Once” project, which allows the new competitors to move the wires of existing internet service providers so as to make room for new pole attachments. This means that the new competitors will no longer have to wait for the internet service providers to send crews in order to move their wires.

The metro government approved the rules to pace up the installation of Google Fiber in the area. Although Comcast and AT&T are all set to overthrow this rule, Nashville has argued that the claims by the Telcos are baseless.

“Comcast’s Complaint should be dismissed because it fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted,” the filing by Nashville noted. “Comcast has not demonstrated that the Metropolitan Government’s Climb Once ordinance is preempted by federal law.”

Nashville filing also added that, “The enactment of Climb Once was a legitimate exercise of police powers to manage public rights-of-way. As it affects poles owned by the Nashville Electric Service (‘NES’), federal pole attachment law is inapplicable to those poles, so preemption does not apply. As it affects privately owned poles, there is no preemption because the FCC timeline [the time allowed for pole attachments] does not conflict with Climb Once ordinances—a position espoused by the FCC itself.”

Nashville requested the court to dismiss the claim made by Comcast Corporation and to announce that the Climb Once ordinance is legitimate. However, Comcast argued by stating that preceding pole-attachment process ensured public safety and they did not cause any damages to the existing networks.

Google Fiber service is currently available in certain parts of Nashville, but many analysts claim that the old rules considerably slowed down the Google Fiber deployment. Nashville hopes that the new ordinance will pace up the installation process.