Attorney Alleging AT&T Discrimination May Go to Court, FCC, Governors
A civil rights attorney for Cleveland broadband consumers threatened a class-action lawsuit against AT&T over alleged income-based discrimination in the city as described by a National Digital Inclusion Alliance report. In a Tuesday letter, Parks and Crump attorney Daryl Parks…
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said the Cleveland consumers will file an FCC complaint and advise state governors to consider the alleged AT&T income discrimination as state executives weigh AT&T’s FirstNet plans this year. Parks notified AT&T about the “redlining” concerns last month (see 1704270045). In a May 5 letter, AT&T Assistant General Counsel James Meza disagreed that the company violated the civil rights section (Section 706) of the Telecom Act. “This study is flawed and its conclusions are specious,” said Meza. AT&T is spending large amounts of money in Ohio and has a “targeted effort to promote broadband adoption by low-income customers,” he said. In the new letter, Parks said the ISP defined “redlining in such a way that only an extreme racial bigot could ever be found to be redlining” and interpreted Section 706 “in a manner that would render the statute completely impotent.” The company's “amount of aggregate investment is irrelevant to discrimination in the placement of investments,” Parks said. An AT&T spokesman and FirstNet didn’t comment further.