Capito Prods FCC to Act on Pole Attachment Proceeding

Senate Public Works Committee ranking member Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., urged the FCC to act on its “long-standing pole attachment proceeding” looking at a 2020 NCTA petition for clarification on pole replacements in unserved areas (see 2007170023). The commission issued a declaratory ruling in 2021 that didn’t act on the petition but clarified that charging the entire cost of a pole replacement to a requesting attacher when the attacher isn't the sole cause of the replacement is “unreasonable and inconsistent” with the Communications Act Section 224 (see 2101190027). The FCC also has an open further NPRM on pole attachment rules it began in 2022 (see 2207130057). The “record is complete and the time is right for the Commission to act in a unanimous fashion,” Capito said in a letter to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel that circulated Friday. In “hard to serve regions of the country, broadband networks are dependent on access to an existing and long established network of utility poles,” but “the process for obtaining timely and reasonable access to poles is too often obstructed due to a number of factors such as workforce shortages and pole owners that are seeking to offer broadband services and receive” federal funding, Capito said: “Absent prompt attention” from the FCC “to act quickly on pending issues before it” like the pole attachment proceeding, “likely will result in missed deadlines and timelines for network construction, as well as changes to deployment plans that will mean that millions of Americans without broadband will have to wait even longer.”