AT & T Cable Deal Wins Tentative Council OK

It’s all over but the voting.

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday had to put off a vote on an ordinance governing the controversial delivery of the Internet on cable TV, but signaled that it will approve the ordinance later.

Several speakers urged the council to approve the ordinance, which would allow AT & T to take over a 94,000-subscriber cable TV system in the east San Fernando Valley.

The vote was postponed for lack of a quorum. But the council signaled that the takeover will eventually get its formal blessing by giving unanimous approval to a resolution on the matter, which requires a smaller quorum than an ordinance.

The ordinance will come up for a vote again next week.

AT & T seeks to acquire the cable operation as part of its pending takeover of Tele-Communications Inc., the company that now owns the East Valley system as well as thousands of others nationwide.

The transfer has sparked a national debate because of AT & T’s plans to offer high-speed Internet service, as well as television, over cable lines.

Other Internet services have argued this would give AT & T an unfair Internet monopoly in areas where it operates cable systems.

The ordinance, crafted by the city’s Information Technology Agency, would allow the transfer to go forward but would also postpone resolution of the Internet issue until it can be studied over the next several months.