Still Talking About Poles

Across the country at federal, state, and industry association meetings there are dire warnings being issued that the cost involved on getting onto poles is going to be a huge hindrance to the implantation of Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grants. Everybody who is talking about this is right, but this is not a new topic—we’ve been talking about this for decades. Now that we are on the eve of finally seeing broadband offices reviewing BEAD grant applications, these warnings feel like too little too late for me. I’m not sure that the folks calling for new pole regulations understand how complicated and challenging it is to change the process of attaching to poles. I’ve worked with many internet service providers to help them through the pole attachment process, and it is rarely easy and often extremely frustrating. There are pole owners who try to make the process easy. But there are pole owners antagonistic to attachers. Unfortunately, there is no universe where we can wave the magic wand of a new regulatory fiat and make pole attachments happen quickly. Anybody who believes this really needs to spend a day looking at poles.