The national news may look bad, but in Nashville, Google Fiber's been busy.
According to data provided by Nashville Electric Service, the gigabit internet provider has fully attached its equipment to 145 utility poles. That's still a meager fraction of the 88,000 the company previously said would be necessary for its Nashville rollout, but it's an increase of 101 from its 44-pole tally as of mid-January. That suggests, whatever the national shakeups and local legal drama would seem to portend, the service many see as an economic development boon for Nashville is still pushing its gradual Music City launch forward.
Google Fiber had previously blamed Nashville's piecemeal pole attachment process — in which each company with equipment attached to a pole must be allowed to move its stuff, sequentially, in order to make room for new attachers — as largely to blame for its slow launch in Nashville. The service's plans for the city were confirmed in early 2015, but only a small group of apartment and condo buildings have received the service more than two years later. (For comparison, AT&T and Comcast are marketing their gigabit products broadly across the market, and have been for some time.)
To remedy the pole-attachment issue, Metro Council adopted a policy called "One Touch Make Ready," allowing new pole attachers to move other companies' equipment themselves. That policy was vociferously opposed by Google Fiber competitors Comcast and AT&T and is now the subject of lawsuits against the city by both.
Meanwhile, with all that legal wrangling ongoing, national news reports have not looked promising for Google Fiber's future. The once-ambitious expansion plans of the service have largely been halted, and recent corporate shakeups have included layoffs, restructuring and a leadership change.
All of this has raised questions about the service's long-term future in Music City, a worrisome point for those who see the trendy rainbow-branded service as a key marketing tool for the city and an accelerant of its growth.
Still, Google Fiber has repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment to Nashville, even agreeing to pay any damages faced by NES as a result of One Touch's implementation — a deal that led NES to dismiss its own suit over the policy and seemed to open the door for One Touch's implementation, months after its adoption.
But One Touch is not the reason for Google's pole attachment acceleration, at least not yet. Google Fiber has submitted applications for pole attachment that could utilize the process, NES spokeswoman Laurie Powell said in an email, but has not "chosen to implement it as of yet."
Google has also continued to apply for pole attachments in recent months, according to NES data, but at a much lower rate than it had been during much of 2016. Four pole applications were submitted in February and March, covering 13 poles. But the company has a sizable backlog of poles it is seeking to attach to; during 2016, its applications included nearly 40,000 poles.
In a statement, Google Fiber reiterated its commitment to Nashville, crediting its progress to " innovative construction and deployment methods we are using in Nashville, including One Touch Make Ready."
"We plan to connect the first single-family homes along with more condos and apartment buildings later this year," the statement continued. "We will have more details to share in the coming months as we continue to expand service to new customers."
