Google Fiber’s VP of access services Milo Medin says that while the company is a strong supporter of net neutrality, what consumers really need is legislation that enables greater competition in the broadband market. FierceTelecom reported Medin’s remarks in a keynote speed at the Comptel conference.
No consumers are seeing higher speeds than before the order was passed; no consumers are paying less for their Internet services than what they were paying for; no consumers are seeing higher volume caps that they had before; and no consumers have additional choice of providers than they had before.
Governments cannot legislate for better customer service, he said, but they can pass laws that increase competition in the market, and this is what will make the most difference to consumers …
Google is keen to rollout its 1Gbps Fiber service to more cities, but is being delayed by the work and legislation involved in doing something as simple as running fiber cables along existing poles, said Medin. The FCC’s reclassification of broadband as a common carrier service has helped, but government agencies need to go further by ensuring that expansion capacity is built into any new infrastructure.
It’s […] important that the processes used for make ready are streamlined and incumbents aren’t able to slow builds down by delaying make ready work. The best outcome would be to not have to do make ready work at all by making sure poles have adequate capacity for multiple providers from the start.
Government promises of a ‘dig once’ policy, where cable conduits are installed alongside all new highways and sewer systems, have not yet been delivered, said Google.
Even when lawmakers do try to make things easy for Fiber rollout, they don’t always succeed: Oregon legislation designed to help Google ended up putting obstacles in the way.
Image: wcnc.com
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