AT&T Loses Challenge to Louisville 'One Touch' Ordinance

In a victory for broadband overbuilders, a Louisville US District Court judge has ruled that a local "one touch make ready" ordinance related to access to utility poles is within the city's right to manage rights of way, granting a city request for that summary judgment and denying AT&T's request that it declare the ordinance unlawful and block enforcement.

AT&T and the Louisville Metro Council had filed cross motions for summary judgment, and the city prevailed. AT&T had sought to overturn the "one touch" ordinance, which had been sought by Google Fiber, that made it easier for competitors to AT&T (BellSouth), like Google, to attach to utility poles, including rearranging existing BellSouth attachments without providing notice to AT&T beforehand unless it would cause an outage. Comcast also filed suit, citing a conflict with Federal Communications Commission pole attachment rules. But the FCC, under then-Chairman Tom Wheeler, weighed in with the court to say that the FCC's pole-attachment rules did not supersede the local "one touch" ordinance.