Verizon, Rochester Clash in Small-Cells Case
Rochester, New York, urged a court to reject summary judgment against it in Verizon’s challenge of the city’s annual right-of-way compensation for small-cell wireless and linear telecom facilities. Verizon has no telecom facilities there, the city wrote Thursday in case…
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19-cv-6583 at U.S. District Court in Rochester. “Plaintiff does not demonstrate that the City’s fees presently do or ever will prohibit it from providing telecommunications services, and plaintiff also fails to demonstrate that the fees charged by the City exceed a reasonable approximation of the City’s objectively reasonable costs related to those (non-existent) telecommunications facilities.” Verizon said Rochester doesn’t “seriously attempt to argue that its fees comply with federal law.” The city’s own code says the challenged fees are meant to recover more than the city’s costs, which violates Section 253 of the Telecom Act and the FCC’s 2018 small-cells order, it said. Replies are due Dec. 2 (see 2110210065).