FCC Finishing Order on Pole Attachments
The FCC is working on a pole attachments order for the April 7 meeting that would lower rates for attachers, commission officials told us. No order is circulating -- but Chairman Julius Genachowski has said he would like to finish work on pole attachments by early April, and staff is nearing the end of its work, the officials said. Power companies have lobbied furiously in recent weeks to preserve rates but apparently haven’t swayed the commission, said FCC officials and utility lobbyists.
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"The indications are that the FCC wants to rationalize pole attachment rates,” said USTelecom Senior Vice President Jon Banks. “To us, that means two things: One, putting people on competitive parity and two, reducing the cost of rural deployment.” The FCC has called “physical infrastructure” questions like pole attachments its top priority, along with getting more spectrum for broadband and overhaul of Universal Service Fund (CD Feb 25 p8).
Power companies are worried that the commission is taking “a bulldozer approach” to regulation, in which deep-seated concerns about safety and reliability are brushed aside, said Deputy Counsel Brett Kilbourne of the Utilities Telecom Council. “The bigger problem is that we're making factual and legal arguments when the FCC is only thinking policy,” he said. “Our biggest fear is that it'll be lower rates and bigger access -- not just bigger access, but unsafe access.” Another problem is that pole attachments are a much more important question to telcos than to power companies. “Quite frankly, communications is not a main business for the utility industry,” Kilbourne said. “It’s not like they're going to devote as much resources as the attachers do. They're much more used to going” to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy “than the FCC,” Kilbourne said.
But the utility companies are going to need the FCC to listen if the companies are going to prevail in the coming conflicts over smart grid (CE Oct 25 p1). “I get the sense that even though everyone agrees that utility companies have a need for spectrum to support smart grid, … it looks like -- and here we go again -- from a policy perspective, the FCC is leaning toward making us rely on commercial carriers,” Kilbourne said. “I think the larger issue is just how much power the carriers have at the FCC.”