N.H. PUC May Resolve Pole Attachment Dispute, Cable Industry Says

Don’t dismiss a cable industry petition to resolve a pole attachment rate dispute with Consolidated Communications, said Charter Communications, Comcast and Breezeline in a Monday filing at the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission. The cable companies asked the PUC in August to look into allegedly “unjust, unreasonable, and unlawful” annual rental rates for attachments on Consolidated poles and joint-use charges by Consolidated for attaching to poles not owned by the company. Consolidated urged the PUC to dismiss because it said the rates, terms and conditions are part of voluntarily entered contracts (see 2210170082). When the PSC developed its 2009 pole attachment rules, “it considered but rejected the jurisdictional argument that Consolidated now advances” in docket DT 22-047, the cablers said. The PSC should again “reject the position that its jurisdiction over pole attachment disputes is limited only to those cases where the parties do not have a pole attachment agreement in place.”