Enlarge / Bardstown Road in Louisville, Kentucky. (credit: Scott Smithson)
Charter Communications has sued the local government in Louisville and Jefferson County, Kentucky, in order to stop a new ordinance that gives Google Fiber easier access to utility poles.
Charter’s complaint in US District Court in Louisville on Friday (full text) is similar to one filed earlier by AT&T. Like AT&T before it, Charter wants to stop Louisville Metro’s One Touch Make Ready ordinance that lets new entrants like Google Fiber make all of the necessary wire adjustments on utility poles instead of having to wait for incumbent providers to send work crews to move their own wires. Charter alleges that the ordinance violates its Fifth Amendment property rights and could cause service outages for its customers if Google Fiber’s installers make mistakes.
Charter, the second biggest cable company in the US, is also mad that both AT&T and Google Fiber face less onerous restrictions in their TV franchise agreements than it does. Charter claims the differential treatment violates its First Amendment right to “speak” as a cable TV provider but did not point to any specific “speech” that has been suppressed.
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Source: Ars Technica – Charter, like AT&T, sues Louisville to stall Google Fiber