AT&T Wins Open-Access Case In Virginia.(AT&T Broadband not required to offer open access to internet service providers)

Multichannel News, July, 2001 by ESTRELLA, JOE

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Communications Commission seems to have been given the power to decide whether cable operators are forced by federal law to provide access to rival Internet service providers. Last week, cable secured yet another legal victory on the broadband-access dispute at the local level when a federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled that, unlike phone companies, AT&T Broadband was .not required to open its facilities to ISPs.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said Henrico County, Va., violated federal law by requiring AT&T to open its cable-modem facilities to rival ISPs. The court held that federal law protected cable operators from having to provide a "telecommunications facility" to...