Comcast installed Wi-Fi gear without approval—and this city is not happy

Enlarge / A Comcast Service Vehicle in Indianapolis, Indiana, in March 2016. (credit: Getty Images | jetcityimage)

Comcast recently installed Wi-Fi equipment in public rights of way without permits in the city of Corvallis, Oregon. But instead of settling the matter locally, a cable lobby group that represents Comcast told the Federal Communications Commission that it should override municipal permitting processes such as the one in Corvallis. In doing so, the cable lobby group made "misleading and inaccurate" allegations about what actually happened in the Comcast/Corvallis dispute, according to city officials.

NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, the cable industry's chief lobby group, told the FCC last month that it "should declare that local governments may not abuse routine permitting processes for construction activity as a backdoor way of extracting unwarranted authorizations and fees from cable operators and otherwise delaying the deployment of new facilities."

NCTA's filing provided several examples allegedly demonstrating that cities and towns are unreasonably holding up network construction. These examples prove that "cable operators are facing unwarranted impediments in their efforts to deploy state-of-the-art broadband networks as a result of abusive permitting requirements," the NCTA claimed.

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