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from: Republican American

U-verse TV battle moves to state court

BY DAVID KRECHEVSKY REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

HARTFORD — The fate of AT&T's U-verse television service now rests with a state superior court judge.

Judge Robert F. McWeeny conducted a hearing Friday before a packed house in Hartford Superior Court on a request from AT&T Inc. to overturn a ruling by state regulators that requires the company to seek a cable TV franchise license for U-verse.

AT&T has said it will pull the plug on U-verse in Connecticut if it is forced to seek a cable license, even though it has invested in constructing lines to deliver the service, hired or plans to hire about 1,300 workers, and has more than 7,000 subscribers in 42 communities. The company plans to invest $336 million over three years to install the service.

McWeeny focused on two points: what legislators intended when they created the new video franchising law, and whether the federal judge's ruling affected the new law.

Attorneys for AT&T said it is clear from language in the new state law and from statements by the legislators who crafted it that they want AT&T to compete with cable without being regulated in the same way.

Attorneys representing the DPUC countered by saying legislators relied on an incorrect assumption, that U-verse "is not a cable service," when they crafted the law.

After hearing all of the arguments, McWeeny said he would not issue a ruling Friday, but intends to have one "soon."