As Google Fiber fights AT&T and Comcast over access to utility poles in Nashville, the new ISP says it hasn't been able to get access to 44,000 poles in the city.

Google Fiber launched in Nashville in April, but expansion throughout the city has been slow in part because of pole access problems. Under the current process, Google Fiber has to wait for other carriers to perform "make ready" work that gets poles ready for Google to attach its own wires. Google Fiber is pushing a "one touch make ready" ordinance that would authorize the ISP to make all of the necessary wire adjustments itself without having to wait for incumbent providers to send their own construction crews. AT&T and Comcast have fought against the proposal.

With a Nashville Metro Council vote scheduled for September 6, Google Fiber published statistics yesterday detailing the scope of its problem.

"Of the 88,000 poles we need to attach Google Fiber to throughout Nashville, over 44,000 will require make ready work," Google Fiber said. Nearly 9,800 poles have been "approved" for make ready work, "but so far, only 33 poles have been made ready."

Google Fiber's blog post didn't say exactly who is to blame, though the incumbents doing make ready work include both AT&T and Comcast. Most of the poles are owned by the Nashville Electric Service, while AT&T is the second biggest owner of utility poles in the city.

(UPDATE: Google Fiber responded to Ars after this piece published, saying that of the 9,793 poles where work has been approved, 4,374 need Comcast to move wires, and 3,595 need AT&T to move wires. The other poles need work by other ISPs, or movements of power lines. While Google's numbers indicate there are about 34,000 poles still waiting approval to start make ready work, it's not clear whether Google has filed applications for all of them.)

AT&T told Ars that it has completed make ready work on 459 poles.

“This is another example of Google attempting to mislead the public and curry favor for government intervention," AT&T said. "The reality is that as of yesterday, AT&T has completed Make Ready work on 459 poles for Google Fiber, and AT&T is meeting or exceeding the timetables outlined in the contract Google signed with AT&T. We have plenty of capacity to handle the workload and are doing so in an expeditious manner.”

AT&T also told Ars that it has received 3,809 applications from Google for make ready work and that nearly half of them required no work by AT&T.

This doesn't necessarily conflict with Google Fiber's statement about only 33 poles being ready, since AT&T isn't the only one who needs to do make ready work on each pole. Ars also contacted Comcast today, but we haven't heard back yet. (UPDATE: Comcast has responded with this statement: "We have a solid record of working collaboratively on pole attachment issues with Google Fiber in Atlanta and with other competitors in many other jurisdictions, and we believe we can achieve similar results in Nashville. We believe that we should quickly come together with all providers collaboratively to work on a solution. Instead of the Council adopting One Touch, pole owners and attachers should agree upon standards and processes to collectively address issues.”)

AT&T recently said that Google Fiber has frequently submitted incorrect engineering drawings. Among other things, this could lead to wires being too low to meet safety standards, AT&T says.

When we contacted the Nashville Electric Service today, the utility pointed us to a piece it published explaining the make ready process. All companies seeking to attach wires to poles owned by the utility poles must submit requests. The utility reviews applications and attempts to provide responses within 45 days. After this, "all companies with attachments on the specific poles are notified and asked to rearrange their lines in order to make space for the new attachment." Then, the utility inspects the work and if there are no problems provides a license to the new provider to attach cable.

Recent growth in the area has led to an increase in pole attachment requests. Companies are generally only allowed to request attachments to 100 poles within a 30-day period, but recently some applications have exceeded this maximum, the utility says.

Google Fiber's blog post yesterday urged Nashville to pass the one touch make ready ordinance.

"Under this current system, each existing provider on the pole needs to send out a separate crew, one by one, to move its own line and make room for a new one," Google Fiber wrote. "This may have worked a generation ago when there were only one or two attachers, but it’s extremely time consuming—not to mention disruptive to residents of Nashville—to do this with the numerous attachers we have today."

The proposed ordinance would let the work be done in as little as a single visit, Google Fiber said.

If Nashville passes the ordinance, AT&T has said it would likely sue the city to prevent the rule from going into place. AT&T already sued the local government in Louisville, Kentucky in an attempt to stop a similar ordinance there.