UPDATE Several telecom organizations – including WIA, Crown Castle and Altice USA – oppose an electric utility association’s attempt to persuade the FCC to reconsider some of its pole attachment reforms the agency adopted in December. The Edison Electric Institute petitioned the Commission last month to reconsider or amend its “grandfathered pole ruling.”
The December declaratory ruling requires pole owners to share in the costs of preparing utility poles for replacement even if they are considered “grandfathered” – meaning they were installed or existed before certain regulations were enacted. The ruling found that when an attacher requests access to a pole that is out of compliance with current safety standards, replacing the pole is “not necessitated solely” by the attacher’s request, and both the pole owner and the attacher who wants access to a pole must share in replacement costs, noted Broadband Breakfast.
The EEI represents U.S. investor-owned electric companies. It wants the FCC to either eliminate or provide more clarity on the cost aspect of the ruling.
The telecom industry and lobbying groups oppose EEI’s arguments. They claim the association’s arguments are unfounded and exaggerate cost burdens put on pole owners.
“The Commission’s clarification that a utility may not evade paying its share of pole replacement costs by adopting new construction standards is well-reasoned, supported by the record, and well within the Commission’s authority. Indeed, the Commission’s clarification merely restates conclusions the Commission has previously expressed,” Crown Castle told the Commission. “When a utility requires an attacher to replace a pole to bring it into compliance with the utility’s own new construction standards, that replacement is not necessitated solely by the attachment request. The ‘grandfathered’ label has no impact on the Commission’s correct analysis,” the company said.
EEI’s petition for reconsideration further called for the FCC to provide specific and clear guidelines on when a utility pole owner must give a copy of its easement to an attacher. Xcel Energy agreed with EEI, saying the new requirement is based on flawed assumptions that these organizations maintain copies of easements or track easement-related information as part of their regular operations.
The Commission will now have until February 28 to reply to the comments received on the fourth report and order and declaratory ruling in this proceeding, according to Broadband Breakfast.
When FCC Commissioners voted on the updates in December, they called pole attachments “essential.” Officials said the point of the changes is to make the process faster, more transparent and more cost-effective, Inside Towers reported.
The FCC amended its pole attachment make-ready rules and required utilities to provide potential attachers information from the utilities’ most recent cyclical pole inspection reports upon request. This information will let attachers know which pole is set to be replaced, and when. Attachers “benefit from having these facts up front and early,” Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said during the vote.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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