Month: December 2016

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The Nashville metro government wants a court to throw out a Comcast lawsuit that seeks to overturn rules designed to speed up deployment of Google Fiber. Nashville filed a motion to dismiss Comcast's lawsuit in US District Court in Tennessee on Wednesday, saying that Comcast incorrectly claimed Nashville's rules are preempted by state and federal law.

The case is about Nashville's "One Touch Make Ready" ordinance that gives ISPs faster access to utility poles. One Touch Make Ready (also known as "Climb Once") lets new competitors move existing ISPs' wires in order to make room for new pole attachments, instead of having to wait for the incumbent ISPs to send work crews to move their own wires. The metro government passed the rules to help Google Fiber install wires faster, but both AT&T and Comcast are seeking to invalidate the ordinance.

"Comcast’s Complaint should be dismissed because it fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted," Nashville wrote. "Comcast has not demonstrated that the Metropolitan Government’s Climb Once ordinance is preempted by federal law. The enactment of Climb Once was a legitimate exercise of police powers to manage public rights-of-way. As it affects poles owned by the Nashville Electric Service ('NES'), federal pole attachment law is inapplicable to those poles, so preemption does not apply. As it affects privately owned poles, there is no preemption because the FCC timeline [the time allowed for pole attachments] does not conflict with Climb Once ordinances—a position espoused by the FCC itself."

Enlarge / One of these cars is not like the others, one of these cars does not belong. (credit: Amazon Prime)

People enjoy talking about The Grand Tour, if the comment threads for the last couple of weeks are anything to go by. Episode one blew several pairs of socks off collected Ars staffers in much the same way episode two didn't. In fact, the drop in quality week-on-week shocked everyone—probably overshadowing the whole DriveTribe thing. This week the tent comes to us from Whitby, a fishing village in Yorkshire, England. Perhaps the local vibe helped, for our three hosts are all Yorkshiremen, and on home soil the show was in fine form.

Most importantly, we got to see an actual grand tour on The Grand Tour. The show is named after the trips around Europe that served as a gap year for rich kids in the 18th and 19th centuries until the Industrial Revolution and those infernal steam engines came along and democratized the whole thing. Jeremy Clarkson and James May take the theme to heart with a trip through the grand cities of Italy. Starting off in Siena and ending in Venice, the plan is to combine art and opera with an appreciation of two of Britain's finest cars.

Appropriately these are a pair of Grand Tourers, machines built to cross continents in style (and at speed if necessary). GTs are an under-appreciated expression of the motoring form, not as flashy as the mid-engined sports car but often similarly out of reach to the average citizen. Combine a two-door shell with a sybaritic interior and a big powerful engine—preferably a V12—driving the rear wheels and that's a GT. In this case, it's Aston Martin's new DB11 and the Rolls-Royce Dawn drophead coupé.

Enlarge / AT&T will own a bunch of new media properties if it is allowed to buy Time Warner. (credit: Aurich Lawson)

AT&T is reportedly feeling confident about its ability to buy Time Warner after meeting with President-elect Donald Trump's transition team—even though Trump himself vowed to block the merger during his campaign.

"Donald Trump’s transition team has reassured AT&T that its $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner will be scrutinized without prejudice," the Financial Times reported yesterday. "After talking with the president-elect’s team, AT&T executives are confident that their deal has a good chance of passing regulatory scrutiny, people informed about the conversation said."

Time Warner, the programming company that owns CNN and HBO, is a separate entity from Time Warner Cable, the ISP that was recently purchased by Charter Communications.