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To: CGarcia who wrote (13989)	8/10/1999 11:43:00 PM
From: Ron Dior	Respond to of 29970

AT&T asks Appeals Court to overturn open access WASHINGTON, Aug 10 (Reuters) - AT&T Corp. <T.N> on Tuesday urged a federal Appeals Court to reverse a lower court decision forcing the company to open its cable high-speed Internet system to competitors in Portland, Oregon. A federal district court in June upheld the authority of the city of Portland and the neighboring county of Multnomah to require AT&T to open its Internet service. The decision sent the shares of cable companies tumbling and sparked renewed interest in open access in municipalities around the country. Seeking to quash that momentum, AT&T said in a brief filed with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that the 1996 Telecommunications Act and the U.S. Constitution barred local governments from imposing open access requirements on cable companies. "Local regulation of such operational matters would needlessly burden cable operators and could subject them to conflicting requirements that balkanize the nation's cable systems," AT&T said. Portland's actions violated four sections of the Telecom Act and the Constitution's commerce clause and First Amendment free speech clause, AT&T said. The controversy arose because, unlike Internet service provided by telecommunications companies, AT&T's offering required customers to buy both high-speed access and Internet services like e-mail and Web page hosting from Excite At Home Corp. <ATHM.O>, owned by AT&T and other cable operators. Local Internet service providers in the Portland area objected to the exclusive deal, prompting the city to require open access as a condition of AT&T's acquisition of Tele-Communications Inc. 17:37 08-10-99 Ron Dior