Charter Sues Louisville Over One Touch Make Ready, Alleges Unfair Playing Field
A one-touch, make-ready ordinance in Louisville attracted a second lawsuit from industry. Following AT&T, Charter Communications subsidiary Insight Friday challenged the Metro Government law in U.S. District Court in Louisville (Case No. 3:16-CV-625). The federal court should "disallow Louisville’s action…
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allowing competitors to trespass on, convert, take possession of, and potentially damage, Insight’s property,” said the cable complaint (in Pacer). Only the Public Service Commission may regulate privately owned utility poles in the state, said Insight. It said the Louisville policy allows Google to take actions “without prior notice and puts strict limitations on Insight’s ability to uncover any possible damage caused to its plant by its competitor or even to assure that it is able to recover the costs of necessary cures. The One-Touch procedures also could allow Insight’s competitors (intentionally or unintentionally) to damage or disrupt Insight’s ability to serve its customers, creating an inaccurate perception in the market about Insight’s service quality and harming its goodwill.” Google pushed for one-touch policies meant to speed new pole attachments as it tries to increase deployment of its competitive fiber network. But existing pole riders opposed such policies. In February, AT&T sued Louisville, saying the city was pre-empted by state pole attachment rules; and last month, it sued Nashville, saying the city was pre-empted by the FCC (see 1609230039). Insight’s suit echoed in part AT&T’s challenge of one-touch, but the Charter company also claimed AT&T and Google benefit from less local regulation of their competitive video services. The court should "bring parity in regulation to Louisville by applying the same regulatory burdens on Insight that it applies to AT&T and Google so that all similarly situated speakers are treated equally in their ability to communicate,” Insight said. "Fair competition requires that the government, whatever its motives, treat similarly situated speakers the same and not unfairly weight one side of the regulatory scale.” Mayor Greg Fischer’s (D) office, AT&T and Google declined comment Tuesday. The city must file an answer to the separate AT&T complaint by Thursday, said a Sept. 20 court order (in Pacer).