Nashville's Google Fiber rollout has hit a pair of snags: rival carriers are, and this may surprise you, stalling the installation of lines needed for Google's new broadband network.

AT&T in particular is battling Google's efforts to run cables from telephone poles around Music City, in Tennessee, US.

The issue centers around access to the poles and the effect the installation of new cable has on existing lines. Under Nashville city laws, carriers that wish to string new cables have to notify all other companies using that pole and give them time to move their lines to make room.

Arguing that this process has slowed the Fiber rollout to a crawl, Google wants a new ordinance that would allow it to move the other cables itself. AT&T, meanwhile, is lining up against the effort on the grounds that Google would be taking work away from its union network technicians by letting its own non-union contractors move AT&T lines.

Fun fact: the huge limestone bed beneath Nashville means operators have no choice but to string above-ground cable in most of the city.

"Just because you spell your name with eight different colors doesn't mean you can't play by the rules that everybody else has to fucking play by," one wag observing the spat told the Nashville Scene.

Google, meanwhile, is doing its best to show that it doesn't need anyone else's help with fumbling the Nashville rollout. On Saturday, streets were closed for several hours after a crew tasked with laying the below-ground cable portion of the Fiber network accidentally severed a gas line.

The ruptured line forced police to close an intersection and call in the gas company to shut off and repair the broken pipes. This is, to our knowledge, the fifth time Fiber contractors have broken a gas, water or power line since the project began in 2015. ®