Blame Your Lousy Internet on Poles

[Commentary] America, we have a problem, and it is tall, ubiquitous, and on the side of the road. It is poles. Not the polls that do or do not track the progress of Donald Trump. Not people of Polish extraction. Utility poles. Poles are the key to our future, because poles are critical components of high-speed fiber optic Internet access. The lucky towns that have dominion over them have been transformed—take, for example, Chattanooga (TN).

Poles, as it turns out, seethe with operatic drama. They are creosote-soaked, 40-foot-high wooden battlegrounds. And, right now, a handful of companies — the usual villains in the Internet access story — is very interested in keeping the status quo in place by quietly making sure that access to these vertical conflict zones is fraught with difficulties. In some areas, poles are controlled by utilities, or even telecom companies. Anyone hoping to string fiber in those places faces two nightmarish, indefinite periods of delay and uncontrolled costs: first getting an agreement in place with the pole owners, and then getting the poles physically ready for a new wire.

[Susan Crawford is the John A. Reilly Clinical Professor at Harvard Law School and a co-director of the Berkman Center.]