AT&T, MediaOne Sue Va. County Over Forced Access

By Bill Pietrucha

Who says you can't fight City Hall, or at least the County Seat? AT&T and MediaOne have filed a complaint in the U. S. District Court in Richmond, challenging an county ordinance that the companies say jeopardizes their provision of new high-speed Internet service to consumers in Henrico County.

Last May, broadband communications provider Media One agreed to merge with AT&T, giving control of the company's cable franchise to AT&T. Local officials in the Old Dominion's capitol city of Richmond, Hanover County and the Town of Ashland approved the cable franchise transfer from MediaOne to AT&T.

In Henrico County, which borders Richmond on the north, however, the County Board of Supervisors gave only conditional approval to the transfer, including a "forced access" provision in the ordinance.

According to James C. Roberts of the law firm Mays & Valentine, counsel for AT&T and MediaOne, the companies would have to re-engineer their cable system to be able to give an unlimited number of competitors access to the cable network.

"The complaint states that the ordinance violates several provisions of federal and state law," Roberts said. "Federal law precludes local and state authorities from imposing common carrier regulations, such as the so- called 'open access' or 'forced access' requirement included in the Henrico ordinance, on cable systems.:

Roberts noted that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), charged with overseeing the cable industry, already has declined to impose this type of regulation on cable systems.

But the ordnance subsequent lawsuit mean the Henrico County residents will have to wait for high speed Internet access until the issue is resolved.

"We need to resolve the legal issues before we can move forward, Ken Dye, MediaOne's general manager in Richmond, said.

January 21, 2000

Source: http://dc.internet.com/news/article/0,1934,2101_291401,00.html