Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) is urging all five FCC Commissioners to take action on the agency’s long-standing pole attachment proceeding. She believes this issue is particularly important as NTIA prepares to distribute more than $42 billion in BEAD broadband grants to close the digital divide.
Capito says ensuring that all American families have access to broadband service and the significant benefits it brings is a top priority for the current Congress, and for the lawmaker personally. “Through multiple, bipartisan legislative initiatives that I helped establish, particularly the BEAD program, enormous federal investments are being made to deploy broadband networks to those households currently without any internet access,” writes Capito in a letter.
For these efforts to be successful, however, the FCC must do its part to ensure broadband construction is promptly and efficiently completed to unserved communities, according to Capito. She says she continues to hear about problems and delays associated with broadband providers getting reasonable and timely access to utility poles as part of their broadband deployment efforts in West Virginia. “I understand that this issue is widespread. The Commission can and must do everything possible to stop this harmful behavior and end practices and tactics that are slowing or halting broadband network deployment,” she writes.
Capito says the trend of rising costs also warrants agency attention “to ensure that federal funds are not being wasted.”
Taking action in the Commission’s long-standing pole attachment proceeding is an important first step, according to the senator. She notes the proceeding was started over three years ago and the record is complete. “The Commission’s actions related to reasonable and timely pole access sets an important precedent, even for pole owners not subject to the Commission’s jurisdiction and in states that have adopted their own pole attachment rules,” states Capito.
In areas where broadband network construction efforts cannot be buried underground, they depend on access to “an existing and long-established network of utility poles. Yet 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 funding from federal broadband programs,” according to Capito.
“West Virginia’s State Broadband Office leadership has publicly declared that reaching pole attachment agreements is the biggest source of delay in deploying federal broadband funding,” writes Capito. “Specifically, inconsistent policies that allow pole access by owners are keeping some broadband networks from being built.”
This pole attachment experience is replicated across the country, she notes. Capito urges the FCC “to establish a fair sharing of pole replacement cost with an expedited process for resolving disputes.” Not doing this, she cautions, “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.”