National Broadband Plan becomes Arena for Pole Attachment Fight

The cable industry is trying to make a connection between pole attachments and the National Broadband Plan. On October 7, executives from Charter Communications visited the Federal Communications Commission saying that recent requests by electric utilities for a penalty pole attachment rental rate for broadband connections constitutes a "broadband tax" amounting to $4.95- $8.66 per Internet subscriber per month and $13.27 - 23.23 per voice subscriber per month. The day before, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association explained that reducing pole attachment rates improves the
business case for broadband investment, particularly in rural areas, while increasing those rates has the opposite effect. In contract, the Coalition of Concerned Utilities is telling the FCC that cable companies are enjoying an unfair competitive advantage over competitive phone companies because the cable operators pay approximately one-half of the pole attachment rates required by the phone companies.