State, Local Officials Want 'Decisive' Changes to Maine Pole-Attachment Rules
Maine commissioners should decisively upend the status quo on pole attachments to spur broadband, government officials commented this week in Public Utilities Commission docket 2017-00247. The PUC is weighing changes as directed by a 2017 state law (see 1712060035). Pole riders including cable companies, CLECs and municipal broadband operators said pole-owner practices impede broadband deployment in the largely rural state. But pole owner FairPoint, recently acquired by Consolidated Communications, resisted changes.
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Rules "should be clear and decisive," said Senate President Michael Thibodeau, a Republican who’s running for governor in 2018. “The rule should prescriptively direct pole owners and pole attachers on what is expected of them and leave little room for interpretation.”
Local governments and competitive providers urged change. Franklin County said the status quo left its residents with “little to no reliable internet connectivity.” Islesboro commented: "The current rules strongly favor the incumbents, power companies and existing pole owners." Sanford noted incumbents including FairPoint refused to enter into public-private partnership on a broadband network, so the city’s acting on its own.
The ILEC "recognizes that attaching entities would like their work done faster and at little or no cost,” saying that "can be in direct conflict with FairPoint’s corporate responsibilities and its charge to provide safe and reliable communications service” and to expand broadband.
A Sept. 27 PUC proposal interpreting the 2017 law controversially set up a dispute process for pole-attachment complaints rather than prescriptive rules. It left out part of the law that would expand to all pole riders the CLEC-supported “Oxford rules,” which include the right to attach equipment below an ILEC’s facilities when higher space isn’t available. Maine is one of about 20 states regulating pole attachments.
Maine Small Business Advocate Peggy Schaffer rejected a dispute process. Pole-attachment rules changes must level “the playing field between pole owners and those seeking to expand broadband access including small ISPs, cable, wireless service providers, small telephone companies and municipalities,” said Schaffer, supporting Oxford rules. Attachment practices create high costs and delays, a "significant barrier" to Maine broadband projects, she said. The PUC should retain space on poles for municipal use, including open-access fiber, said Schaffer. Local governments agreed.
FairPoint supported the proposed dispute process. "Unless and until the Commission first finds that the parties have failed to agree, the Commission has no authority to prescribe the terms and conditions of attachment,” it said. Rules must "account for safety and not shift properly allocated costs away from Attachers and on to the pole owning utilities,” the carrier said. Pole riders disagreed. Prescriptive rules mean "fewer disputes among pole owners and attachers [and] quicker attachment installations,” Level 3 and ExteNet said.
Expanding Oxford rules was supported by Comcast, Charter Communications, Level 3, ExteNet and CLECs including FirstLight, which acquired Oxford Networks. FairPoint sees only downside. “Oxford applications require the same percentage of pole replacements, a higher percentage of poles that require make-ready, on average the Oxford poles have taken longer in construction and on average Oxford pays more per pole,” FairPoint said. It’s cheaper and safer for FairPoint to always be lowest on the pole, said the company, because its cables “are heavier and have significantly more sag.”
Dropping the lowest-on-the-pole rule would chill broadband deployment, said the Maine Office of Public Advocate. “Allowing the rule to go into effect without a prohibition on the pole owner’s ability to dictate who obtains the lowest placement on the pole will help keep make-ready costs unaffordable, maintaining a significant barrier to the expansion of broadband.”
Comcast, Charter and other cable companies complained about pole-owner practices that raise costs and delay broadband builds. Pole owners sometimes force new attachers to correct violations by others already attached to the pole, the cable companies said. The PUC should allow third-party contractors to perform pole work if owners miss deadlines, the cable companies said. FairPoint disagreed. The company said the PUC could instead set up a rapid-response process for attachers to flag slowness so the agency could order FairPoint to speed up.