FCC Adopts New Pole Attachment Rules

The Federal Communications Commission adopted an Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that implements key recommendations of the National Broadband Plan for promoting broadband deployment and competition. The Order and Further Notice will make broadband more affordable and available by speeding and reducing the costs of access to an essential piece of infrastructure: utility poles.

Currently, access by service providers to poles can be slow, costly, and mired in long disputes. The National Broadband Plan recognized that one way to lower the costs of telecommunications, cable, and broadband deployment and promote competition is to reduce the cost of access to infrastructure. The Plan found that the impact of utility pole attachment rates on broadband can be particularly acute in rural areas, where there often are more poles per mile than households.

The Order will reduce costs and speed access to poles by clarifying the statutory right of communications providers to use the same space- and cost-saving techniques that pole owners use, such as placing attachments on both sides of a pole. The Order also establishes that attachers have a statutory right to timely access to poles.

The Further Notice seeks comment on revising pole attachment rates to make them as low and as close to uniform as possible, reducing the disparity between current telecom and cable rates. Different rates for different types of firms using the same space on a pole makes little sense when the cost of providing the space is the same to the utility pole owner. Disparate rates can affect investment decisions and product offerings, resulting in fewer competitive choices for consumers. The Further Notice also seeks comment on a specific timeline to govern each step of the pole attachment process, while still providing flexibility to accommodate safety concerns and special circumstances, such as natural disasters.


FCC Adopts New pole Attachment Rules FCC (read the Order and Notice) Telephone Poles (FCC)