“If you make it easy, we will come. If you make it hard, enjoy your Time Warner Cable,”
The blunt advice, reported in GigaOm's Jeff John Roberts' article about Medin's participation in a panel discussion at a Washington DC technology event, also included some insight into the factors Google uses to select cities for fiber deployment projects.
It is not surprising that broadband providers would prefer to work with municipalities who not only want broadband services for their residents, but make it easy for the companies to deploy networks. Practically everyone agrees that broadband deployment increases regional economic development and creates jobs. However, due to factors such as low population densities and high costs associated with difficult rural terrains, attracting investment from broadband providers to deploy a sustainable broadband network is difficult. Navigating difficult rules and regulations imposed by municipalities only compounds the deployment challenges provides already face.
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The challenges cited by Medin include manual processes such as the use of fax machines to communicate, and simply the lack of accurate information regarding existing infrastructure to develop implementation plans.
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Companies like AT&T and Verizon haven't been shy about saying they would also like to deploy similar networks - if municipalities would offer concessions like those offered to Google. In October 2013, Google Access Project Leader Kevin Lo offered specific advice to municipalities who are courting gigabit broadband providers. Speaking at the Broadband World Forum in Amsterdam, Lo listed three measures that municipalities could take to make gigabit broadband deployments more attractive to potential providers:
• Access to power poles, ducts, and cable conduits: Once Google has figured out what it needs to use, "We agree to a fair-market price so we can get up to that space," Lo said.
• Provide good maps - not just the location of power poles and conduit channels, but also water mains and gas lines that can complicate installations. "We've been surprised how big a problem this is for a lot of our cities," Lo said.
• Expedite construction permits: "When we build, we are submitting literally tens of thousands of permits. We work closely with the city to expedite that process. These are the things that have been consuming our teams' time," Lo said.
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Chairman Tom Wheeler also spoke about the importance of effective broadband deployment policies as a way to break down barriers to expanded broadband access in a speech delivered in 2014. He spoke specifically about Google's approach to deploying fiber in cities selected by the company.
"Google has developed a checklist for cities that want to participate in their Google Fiber project of steps that can be taken to ensure easier access to existing infrastructure and to make construction speedier and more predictable."
Google's selection and planning process includes municipality concessions to facilitate deployment and a "fiber-ready checklist," which include items which speed up the planning and construction process of the build. The fiber-ready checklist includes streamlined permitting, access to GIS data, and use of municipality controlled telecommunication assets such as utility poles, conduits, and water, sewer and gas lines.