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Judge Says County Can't Regulate Net Access
A federal district judge ruled Wednesday against officials in Henrico County, VA saying they do not have the right to regulate Internet access to cable networks through the local cable franchise process.
Judge Richard Williams, for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, ruled in summary judgment in favor of AT&T, which has argued that local authorities do not have the right to place conditions on the transfer of cable ownership franchises.
"It appears that the decision affirms what we've said all along," said AT&T spokesman Jim McGann. "This is a matter the marketplace will determine in the best interest of consumers, and it is not a subject appropriate for town by town regulation by local franchising authorities."
Williams is expected to release a written opinion explaining his decision within the next 30 days.
The Henrico County Council voted 3-2 in December to add an open access condition to the approval of the AT&T and Media One cable franchise transfer. They required AT&T to allow competing Internet service providers (ISPs) access to the long distance giant's cable network.
"By overturning the local government's decision, the court has taken the right to choose their own ISP out of the hands of consumers and placed it back in the hands of the cable companies," said Rich Bond, co-director of the openNET Coalition, in a statement.
A federal district court in Portland, OR, ruled in favor of Portland officials' right to condition the cable franchise. A decision on the appeal of that case from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is expected any time. A number of other localities have tried to place similar conditions on cable franchise transfers, but the Portland and Henrico County cases are the only two that have made it to the federal court level.
So far, the Federal Communications Commission has refused to engage in a formal proceeding on the issue, and has instead favored a hands-off policy on the access issue.
AT&T and America Online, which announced that it is merging with Time Warner, have both stated their intentions to eventually open their cable networks to competing ISPs. AT&T cable broadband users must now go through its own ISP, ExciteAtHome before reaching other services.
Cities March To The Web
Nearly 90 percent of officials from 365 cities polled by the National League of Cities (NLC) say they have a Web site, up from 36 percent four years ago.
Cities also are expanding the number of services they offer online as they make their move to the Internet, with 72 percent reporting that residents can submit comments and complaints online, 58 percent offering forms and other basic information, and 31 percent allowing forms and applications to be submitted via the Web.
"The rapid growth of municipal home pages on the Internet appears to be closely followed by an increasing array of online services for their users," said NLC Executive Director Don Borut, in a statement.
According to the poll, cities also are using in-house resources to maintain their Internet presence with 79 percent reporting that municipal staff manage the Web pages, with 4 percent using outside contractors and 17 percent using a combination of both. Only 6 percent of city leaders said they have advertising on their Web sites.
E-Governor Ventures To The Valley
Gov. Michael Leavitt, R-UT, who has made the new economy a keystone of his administration and his leadership of the National Governors' Association, trekked to Silicon Valley this week to explain how state governments could better dive venture capital investing into their own backyards.
Speaking at Stanford University's Hoover Institute, Leavitt explained that policymakers and the private sector need to take advantage of the opportunities created by the burgeoning new economy. Leavitt also unveiled the second in a series of NGA studies on the new economy.
The most recent installment
focuses on how policymakers can attract new businesses and venture capital to their states.
"The speed of global commerce and the short life cycle of successful product development requires entrepreneurs to find large amounts of equity capital," Leavitt said in a statement about the new study. "Investors attract entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs attract investors. Those regions that have been able to assemble a critical mass of both are thriving in the new economy."
To date, venture capital has been focused on select regions — such as Silicon Valley, Boston, Austin and New York — that have become key high-tech centers because of the infusion of cash.
The NGA study recommends that states expand their knowledge of seed and venture investing, promote the visibility of local entrepreneurs and investors, create investment capital for specific industry sectors and create investment capital to start a venture capital industry.
NGA plans to issue a total of eight new economy studies throughout the year.
Wireless Bill Moving Through Its Legislative Paces
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law is expected to hold a hearing Thursday on cellular phone tax legislation that some see could serve as a model for handling sales taxes on goods and services sold over the Internet.
The subcommittee will consider H.R. 3489, introduced by Rep. Charles Pickering, R-MS. The bill would ensure that taxes on cellular phone services would only be collected by the user's home service provider, and not charged by other states in which the consumer travels and uses his or her phone. Pickering's bill goes further than a Senate plan, S. 1755, by including provisions regarding electronic eavesdropping via cell phones.
The Senate Commerce Committee approved S. 1755 April 13, and the House Commerce Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee held a hearing on the bill on April 6.
The legislation has received support from the National Governors' Association and its chairman Gov. Michael Leavitt, R-UT. The legislation, while not imposing any new taxes, would allow states and localities the right to develop databases that assign each address to the appropriate taxing jurisdiction.
Some have suggested a similar model could be developed to determine which local sales taxes apply to goods bought online.
- by Rebecca Weiner
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