Media Groups Say AT&T Discriminates Against Local Channels

Community media groups joined with a nationwide coalition of municipalities and regional organizations in filing a Petition for Declaratory Ruling with the Federal Communications Commission charging that telecom giant AT&T discriminates against local public channels with its U-verse cable TV system. In states from California to Connecticut, wherever AT&T is providing video programming, its U-Verse system removes local PEG channels from the standard lineup, dumping dozens of channels into a generic "Channel 99" ­ stripping away individual channel identities and depriving those channels of basic functions viewers have come to expect. AT&T subscribers cannot simply tune in the village board meeting or homework help program. Viewers can't switch between commercial and PEG channels, set a DVR to record a PEG program, or depend on getting timely local emergency alerts or closed captioned programming. In an independent report released September 2008, the Congressional Research Service agreed that, "AT&T has chosen not to make PEG programming available to subscribers in the same fashion that it makes commercial programming available."