A group of 37 utility pole owners have joined together to ask the FCC to retain the current pole replacement compensation system. Otherwise, they warned, they won’t be able to continue to satisfy telecom attachers’ need for expansion. The issue is part of a broader update the agency is considering as it removes barriers to broadband infrastructure investment.
The Coalition of Concerned Utilities recently lobbied the Commission. Its members collectively serve more than 30 million households and businesses in 20 states and the District of Columbia.
For four decades utilities have helped telecoms expand by voluntarily replacing “perfectly good utility poles with taller poles, despite having no legal obligation to do so. In recent years, these voluntary premature pole replacements have facilitated the expansion of much-needed broadband services,” writes Keller & Heckman attorney Thomas Magee, in a meeting summary for the coalition.
Coalition members characterize premature replacement of utility poles at the behest of communications attachers as an “onerous, time consuming, labor intensive process,” summarizes Magee. It diverts resources from system reliability, grid modernization and clean energy initiatives, claim the utilities.
“Despite these disincentives to prematurely replacing poles for communications companies, utilities for four decades have been willing to perform these voluntary pole replacements because they have been compensated for it,” notes Magee. The coalition explained that attacher proposals in this proceeding “to modify this longstanding, carefully balanced and successful cost reimbursement mechanism would cause many utilities to reconsider … whether dropping everything to perform voluntary and premature pole replacements is worth the time, effort and expense.”
Coalition representative Tom Pryatel, of FirstEnergy Corp., explained the “time-consuming” process electric utilities currently undertake voluntarily to prematurely replace poles for communications companies. “This process to replace good serviceable poles on demand for communications companies involves the immediate diversion, and careful coordination, of numerous utility personnel and resources, and considerable efforts to minimize the impact of this activity on electric customers and the public,” according to Pryatel.
When utilities are not compensated for pole replacements, they must try to recover those costs through utility rate cases before their respective state utility commissions. In these cases, utilities are “hard-pressed” to justify how the costs necessitated by communications attacher requests benefit utility ratepayers, notes the group.
The coalition urged the FCC to retain the current “successful and carefully balanced pole replacement compensation system.”
Internet and telecom network providers have pushed the FCC to reform the agency’s pole attachment rules, saying the current cost allocation regime favors utility pole owners. The FCC has an open proceeding looking into whether pole replacement costs should be shared by the pole owner and attachers, Inside Towers reported. The point is to speed broadband deployment.
INCOMPAS, an association for internet and telecom network providers, supports a cost allocation formula proposed by Crown Castle, which it says, “demonstrates that a pole replacement carries inherent benefits to pole owners in the form of incremental betterment and cost savings while still capturing an owner’s need to recover a portion of the pole to be replaced and a share of the incremental cost if a pole is upgraded.”
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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