Saturday, July 28, 2007

AT&T Has Franchising Set Back

A Federal judge has ruled that ATT's U-verse is a cable service in Connecticut. This ruling overturned a ruling by the state regulators that exempted ATT from acquiring video franchises town by town. After receiving the earlier favorable ruling last year, ATT stated that it would invest more than $300 million to upgrade its broadband network in Connecticut.

This Federal court ruling could be moot, however, due to legislation recently passed in the Connecticut state legislature and signed into law earlier this month . The new law sets up state franchising for both cable and phone companies, and state authorities would only have 45 days to act on applications before they are automatically granted.

It does not appear that this ruling will have a significant effect on ATT's IPTV efforts. It would not be good news for the company, however, if other Federal judges made similar rulings.

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