ACLP Files Reply Comments with the FCC on Pole Attachments and Reverse-Preemption States
The ACLP recently filed reply comments with the FCC in response to its Public Notice on poles and reverse-preemption states (WC Docket Nos. 17-84, 10-101).
As an overview, the comments:
- Offer data and analysis regarding the stakes of the inquiry. Pole attachments remain essential to broadband deployment.
- Discuss why maintaining a scattershot approach to resolving disputes between attachers and electric utilities will slow network construction, raise costs, and deprive Americans of advanced communications services.
- Highlight the many differences between the modern communications and electric markets and argue that regulatory frameworks for pole attachments should be updated to reflect these dynamics.
- Recommend that reverse-preemption states be required to recertify their status with additional documentation to demonstrate, among other things, how they balance the interests of broadband customers and electric customers when administering their pole rules.
Attached to the comments is an analysis that we developed to identify how many ISPs serve more than one state. This is among the most significant differences between today’s communications market and electric market. Nearly every electric customer is served by a utility that in all likelihood does not offer retail service across state lines. This is the foundation for state-level regulation of electric utilities as natural monopolies by PUCs. In contrast, we found that 93.6% of U.S. residential units (123,987,527 of 132,526,201) are served by a wireline ISP that operates in more than one state. This highlights the interstate nature of the broadband market and underscores the need for greater consistency in pole attachment regulation.