Where is Google being tripped by by regulatory hurdles? Google's whole M-O with Google fiber is to demand waiver of regulatory requirements that everyone else has to comply with, in particular build-out requirements.[1]
This story is actually a great example of how Google is not being held back by regulatory hurdles. Google apparently got the municipality here to pass a "fast-track" ordinance that let's it move AT&T's equipment on AT&T's utility poles often without even notifying AT&T. The federal pole attachment regulation here is totally reasonable: utilities must provide non-discriminatory access to poles, but telecommunications providers must follow procedures for requesting access and providing notice.
[1] I happen to think build-out requirements are a dumb idea, but they're a policy choice to cross-subsidize internet service for poor neighborhoods, not a "regulatory hurdle."
I only read the article, not the brief, but it sounds like they're objecting to Google touching the pole at all (AT&T's property) without working with AT&T.. if it were a matter of moving around AT&T's actual equipment, I'd be with you, if it's a matter of touching the pole, and AT&T has some long dragged out process of 'notification and consent', I can see why Google wants that ability.
RE: Build out requirements, funny story since I was at the table for one of these contracts once. We took it as granted that we'd keep the buildout requirement intact but if I analyze the politics of it.. tell someone they can't have cable and you have a guaranteed vote against you, but give EVERYONE a $5 higher bill and nobody will know to blame you.
AT&T is challenging the municipal ordinance. That ordinance allows a new attacher (Google) to "relocate or alter the attachments or facilities of any Pre-Existing Third Party User as may be necessary to accommodate Attacher's Attachment[.]" The new attacher must only provide 30-days notice if it determines that the work will cause or reasonably be expected to cause an outage.
The existing process is prescribed by federal law. 47 C.F.R. 1.1420. Under that process, when an attachment is requested by a new attacher, the utility pole owner (usually the power company), must give everyone else using the pole notice of the new attachment and specify a date for competing the necessary make-ready work that is within 60 days of the notice. That gives the existing attacher the opportunity to modify its attachment to accommodate the new one so that the utility or the new attacher does not need to move its equipment.
Under the federal regulations, for the poles AT&T doesn't own, they don't even need to consent. They're just given the opportunity to move their equipment before someone else handles it.
Most of the cost of laying fiber is passing a neighborhood. Fiber provides live and die by their uptake rate--the percentage of the houses they pass that actually subscribe. Build out requirements tank your uptake rate, because in most cities large segments of the population simply cannot afford to subscribe. If the provider is forced to build into those neighborhoods anyway, they have to raise prices everywhere else, which further reduces their uptake rate.
So think about that from a prospective competitor. Maybe 20% of the neighborhoods in say Baltimore would be willing to pay enough for fiber service for it to be worthwhile challenging Comcast in those areas. But if I'm forced to build out everywhere--in a city where a quarter of the population is below the poverty line--there's no chance it makes economic sense for me to do so. I'd have to raise prices so much in profitable neighborhoods that I'd never be able to compete with Comcast.
This is, by the way, why Baltimore city doesn't have FiOS despite being in the heart of Verizon's FiOS area. And it's also why nobody else will build fiber here either, despite the city desperately courting providers.
This story is actually a great example of how Google is not being held back by regulatory hurdles. Google apparently got the municipality here to pass a "fast-track" ordinance that let's it move AT&T's equipment on AT&T's utility poles often without even notifying AT&T. The federal pole attachment regulation here is totally reasonable: utilities must provide non-discriminatory access to poles, but telecommunications providers must follow procedures for requesting access and providing notice.
[1] I happen to think build-out requirements are a dumb idea, but they're a policy choice to cross-subsidize internet service for poor neighborhoods, not a "regulatory hurdle."