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To: Dalin who wrote (30545)	9/9/1999 10:04:00 PM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 41369

Officials defend AT&T Net ruling SAN FRANCISCO (Bloomberg) - Oregon public officials defended their decision to make AT&T Corp. open its cable systems for Internet access to rivals, saying federal law gives them the broad power to protect consumers and competition. The argument was made in court papers filed Wednesday in response to AT&T's challenge of the so-called ''open access'' policy required by the city of Portland and Multnomah County, Oregon, as of last year. AT&T, the second-largest U.S. cable-TV operator, claims the open access requirement violates the First Amendment. In addition, it claims Congress has already passed laws prohibiting local governments from forcing cable companies to open their lines. Portland and Multnomah County, though, ''concluded that the bottleneck created by AT&T's control of the high-speed gateway to the Internet threatened competition and consumer choice, and was inconsistent with the vibrant, open, innovative character of the Internet,'' the city and county said in papers filed with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Officials in Oregon had approved the transfer of Tele-Communications Inc.'s cable-TV franchise to AT&T on the condition that TCI's cable system be opened for use by outside Internet-access companies. TCI, which AT&T bought for $59.4 billion in March, and AT&T sued to overturn that condition earlier this year. A federal judge denied the lawsuit in June, and AT&T appealed. AT&T doesn't want the ruling to set a precedent that could make it easier for other local governments to require it to open up its cable lines to rival Internet-access providers. Shares of AT&T, based in New York, fell 7/16 to 45 5/8 in midday trading Thursday