Boring telephone poles are secret to more broadband

Infrastructure is a hot topic these days as Congress considers ways to make multi-trillion dollar investments in areas of disrepair or to fund new projects. A critical infrastructure component has been excluded from the discussion: Telephone poles. These poles, along with rights-of-way, are essential to bringing high-speed broadband to unserved Americans and offering new choices. Yet, current federal, state, and local policies are not enough to prod greater access to poles and rights-of-way by providers building broadband in unserved communities. There are simple fixes that would drastically improve the situation. Top of the list should be requiring all pole and rights-of-way managers, notwithstanding structure or size, to comply with federal law on the subject, which helps govern rates, replacement, and approval processes. Right now, many of those entities fall outside of these requirements. In the interim, individual states need to step to the plate, as Florida and others are looking to do, to enact strong state laws, comparable to the federal system. In addition, local governments should demand that their electric power companies make poles and rights-of-way available to broadband providers in a cost-efficient and timely manner. Almost everyone agrees that expanding and improving private sector broadband networks should be a priority.  Making that happen, however, requires fixing pole attachment and right-of-way processes so that broadband providers actually can bring service to our neighbors missing out.

[Michael O’Rielly is a former FCC Commissioner and a 20-year staff member of the US Senate and House focusing on technology and telecommunications policy.]