In a joint status update filed Tuesday in Polk County District Court, Mediacom and West Des Moines say the parties have reached a preliminary agreement on a set of “high-level terms” to resolve the lawsuit Mediacom filed against the city in December 2020.

The filing requests, however, that the court stay the matter until Nov. 29 so the parties can negotiate details of the license and settlement agreements. It also says that although the parties will discuss the more detailed matters, a consensus is not guaranteed.

The lawsuit alleges the city has an exclusive agreement with Google Fiber to install a citywide broadband network and gave Google Fiber control over the design of the conduit. The parties entered negotiations on Sept. 1.

Before negotiations started, there were several actions this summer. The validation period, which is the amount of time Google Fiber will be the only provider using the conduit network, was reduced from 18 months to six months at a June City Council meeting. At a hearing in August, Mediacom argued that the space allotted to it and other local broadband providers was too small for their fiber cables and would make the conduit unusable to them.

Lumen Technologies, formerly CenturyLink, has made a public comment on Mediacom’s petition to the FCC that was filed in May and asks the regulator to review the city’s management of its rights of way.

Filed Oct. 7, the comment said that Lumen’s history of working with the city of West Des Moines is put “at risk” by the agreement with Google Fiber. “Google Fiber’s exclusive arrangement with the City will materially inhibit the ability of Lumen and other broadband providers to deploy additional broadband services and improve existing broadband services in the municipality,” the comment reads.

In 2016, Lumen planned to extend fiber-to-the-home services to 600 households in the Valley Junction neighborhood. According to the filing, the plans did not move forward because Lumen requested the use of existing aerial infrastructure for the project and the city’s rights-of-way practices require most broadband infrastructure to be placed underground.

The reply comment period on the petition ended Tuesday. A decision from the FCC is the next step, but the timing of a ruling will depend on when the commission decides to consider the case.