NCTA: U-Verse Is a Cable Service

NCTA: U-VERSE IS A CABLE SERVICE
[SOURCE: Multichannel News]
National Cable & Telecommunications Association general counsel Neal Goldberg fired back at AT&T’s claims that its U-Verse video offering is not a cable service in a Federal Communications Commission filing Monday. AT&T is currently involved in a court battle over the matter in Connecticut, facing a federal lawsuit, filed July 19 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut in New Haven by the state's Office of Consumer Counsel and the New England Cable Telecommunications Association, challenging the action of the Department of Public Utility Control, which ruled last month that AT&T does not need a franchise to provide cable service. “In case there were any doubts that AT&T’s video offering is a ‘cable service’ as a matter of law, and that it is virtually identical to the services provided by incumbent operators, as a matter of fact, recent events have put those doubts to rest,” Goldberg wrote. "In its early filings, AT&T also argued that its facilities did not constitute a ‘cable system’ because they met the ‘interactive on-demand’ exception to the definition of ‘cable system,’” he added. “[The] NCTA has demonstrated why that exception does not apply to the programming AT&T says it will carry -- primarily because at least some of the programming will be ‘prescheduled’ by the programming provider and, therefore, its facilities will not be used ‘solely to provide interactive on-demand services."
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6358027.html?display=Breaking+News