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Pole-attachment debate centers on telecom vs. cable rates and 'make-ready' cost allocation
Summary
Intervenors, the Office of Consumer Counsel and state agencies pressed PURA to address how pole-attachment rental formulas and make-ready costs should be allocated; parties proposed a regulatory-liability approach to protect ratepayers while supporting broadband deployment.
Parties at the PurA oral argument urged the authority to revisit how pole-attachment rental rates and replacement ("make-ready") costs are allocated between utilities, broadband attachers and electric ratepayers.
Broadband providers Crown Castle and Go Net Speed, and the New England Connectivity and Telecommunications Association (NECTA), argued that if rates are to be unified the appropriate benchmark is the FCC’s longstanding cable-rate formula, not the higher telecom formula. NECTA said the proposed decision’s move to “unify” rates at the telecom formula would raise rates and lacked notice and evidentiary support in the record. Crown Castle and Go Net Speed told the panel lower rates…
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