FCC Investigates the Cost of Pole Replacements

The Federal Communications Commission recently issued a Second Notice of Proposed Rulemaking concerning the allocation of costs when replacing poles to accommodate adding fiber or other communications wires communications devices to poles. The traditional rule has been that the new attacher must pay for 100 percent of the cost of make-ready, including the cost of pole replacement if there is not sufficient room to add a new wire or device (like a small cell). In January 2021, the FCC issued an order that clarified that it is unreasonable for a new attacher to automatically have to pay the full cost of swapping a pole. This current NPRM now asks the industry for comments to clarify some of the stickier situations that arise out of trying to allocate the costs of pole replacement. The FCC is asking the right questions. Carriers wanting to add wires or devices to poles have had two common complaints – the process takes too long and is too expensive. The dilemma faced by the FCC is that anything other an iron-clad, non-debatable formula for allocating costs for pole attachments will make the timelines worse. If there is even a sliver of a chance for the costs to be negotiated, there will be a lot of disputed negotiations that will be to be resolved by regulators – and that will inevitably add even more time to the pole attachment process. Consider a solution that uses a formula that determines the share of costs allocated to the pole owner by the age of the pole – the older the pole, the more a pole owner pays. I can promise even that will lead to arguments about the age of a given pole.

[Doug Dawson is President of CCG Consulting.]