When Government Impedes Fiber Construction

It always perplexes me at a time when solving rural broadband is a top priority that governments still create policies that are huge barriers to fiber construction. The newest story comes from the State Department of Transportation in New York (NYDOT). The agency has a permitting process that is adding tons of costs to fiber projects – including fiber projects that were funded by State broadband grants. The NYDOT requires an expensive process to get onto a pole located in State rights-of-way. A fiber builder must first request an official copy of the State’s existing mapping for each pole through the FOIL process – New York’s Freedom of Information Law. The process can be slow. For example, if the State intends to charge a fee for the record, the State must write to the internet service provider (ISP) to inform it of the fee before proceeding. Once an ISP has the official documents related to a given pole, it must apply for a permit to use the pole through the PERM75 permitting process, which must be done for every pole. This process adds a lot of time and expense to permitting and is completely unnecessary because nobody else in the country puts ISPs through these steps.

[Doug Dawson is President of CCG Consulting.]