City of Chicago Loses Bid to Collect Revenues from Comcast
The Supreme Court of Illinois has ruled unanimously against the City of Chicago in its efforts to collect revenues related to the franchise fee from Comcast’s cable modem service. The decision, handed down November 20, 2008, relied heavily on the FCC’s 2002 interpretation excluding cable modem service from inclusion in a cable operator’s 5% gross revenues for franchise fee purposes (along with its definition of cable modem service as an interstate information service), along with several Federal district court decisions. The full text of the decision is available here.