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from: Dayton Politics

April 1, 2007
Jacobson Moves to Give AT&T Eminent Domain Powers

There’s finally a Legislative Reference Service bill analysis posted for Senate Bill 117, AT&T’s bill to eliminate local cable franchising in Ohio.

The bill substitutes a state-issued “Video Service Authorization”, or “VSA”, for local cable TV franchises. The LRS analysis says in paragraph four:

a VSA confers on a person the authority to (1) provide video service in the video service area specified in its application, (2) construct and operate a video service network in, along, across, or on public rights-of-way, and (3) when necessary to provide the service, appropriate private property.

If AT&T (in its capacity as a state-rubber-stamped VSA) should decide that it needs a piece of your yard to provide U-Verse video to your neighbors, your only recourse will be a court of law. Your local government will have no authority at all in the matter; and the state Commerce Department, which will issue the VSA, “has no authority to regulate video service rates, terms, or conditions of service”.