Milwaukee sues over IPTV

by Brian Turner

In the United States it seems that someone is always suing someone else. Usually it is the governments that are being sued by the citizens. Now itâ€™s the government suing the citizens â€“ or at least the corporations.

The City of Milwaukee has filed a federal lawsuit that seeks to require telephony giant AT&T to negotiate a cable franchise agreement to cover the IPTV service it plans to begin to offer soon to Milwaukee consumers.

But thereâ€™s a problem. Not everyone agrees on just how to classify IPTV. If the City of Milwaukee can not prove that Internet Protocol Television is in fact a cable TV system and not a telephony service then its suit is dead before it hits the ground.

This is just what AT&T hopes will happen. It contends that under current federal law, IPTV is NOT a cable TV system.

The city already has a long-standing franchise agreement with Time Warner Cable. Under the agreement that it is seeking, AT&T would have to make annual payments to the city.

AT&T has already launched its IPTV service in San Antonio and Houston. It stands behind its assertion that the service helps consumers by adding competition for cable monopolies.

The telephony giant and the city will probably work out the suit long before it sees a court room. AT&T has said that it does want to see the city continue to have revenue sharing when customers begin to shift to the IPTV service from traditional cable.

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