By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – A thorn in the side of third party cable companies told to bear the full cost of a pole replacement to attach their telecom equipment on wood structures has been addressed Wednesday by the CRTC, which ruled that attachers should not bear more than 50 percent of the cost of a replacement in most instances.
Pole owners – mainly legacy telephone companies Bell and Telus – have historically charged full price for the pole replacement if a third party wanted to put their equipment on the wood structures (the regulator said this is “often” the case). The replacement would be required either because additional attachments would not be supported on the older structure or there’s no additional capacity.
But in a decision that culminated from a years-long proceeding on obstacles to broadband deployment, the CRTC ruled that the pole owners also benefit from a replacement and therefore should bear some of the cost as well.
“A new pole has a service life of 30 to 40 years, and the owner will be able to not only use it for its services, but also rent space at tariffed rates,” the CRTC said Wednesday.
“The Commission considers that while requiring pole owners to replace their poles may warrant a review of the costing methodology, a cost-sharing approach based on good-faith negotiation could lead to mutually beneficial outcomes for attachers and pole owners,” the decision added.
The regulator now requires that the owners of the poles – not including the electrical utility that may share ownership with the telephone company – enter “good-faith negotiations” and include in their agreements with third party attachers “to find mutually beneficial solutions to upgrade poles with a lack of capacity.”
“Insisting that a single attacher assume more than 50% of the total pole replacement costs, including the costs associated with the relocation of facilities, would in most instances not constitute good-faith negotiation,” the CRTC said.
The pole owners regulated by the commission must also file quarterly reports outlining why they did not replace a pole to accommodate additional capacity.
The CRTC also ruled that attachers should not bear the full burden of pole maintenance costs either, with the assumption being that the owner should maintain and do any corrective work on the poles on their own dime.
“Therefore, to prevent anti-competitive behaviour, [the incumbent] should not be able to deny an application due to the lack of capacity caused by a pole not being up to construction standards, and they should have to bring all poles subject to an attachment request to such standards, at their own cost,” the CRTC said.
Fixed timelines for make-ready work
In comments submitted to the regulator, third party attachers complained about delays in pole access as one of the primary obstacles to deployment. Specifically, they complained about having to wait for the pole owner to do preparatory work, paid by the requester, on the pole before an attachment can be placed.
The CRTC thus ruled that those third parties should be able to do the simple “make-ready” work themselves to speed up the process, but within a specific timeframe.
After the attachment has been authorized, the attacher will have to notify the pole owner within 30 days that it will embark on the simple work – defined in Wednesday’s order as work that doesn’t constitute a safety hazard, such as tree trimming and moving existing cables – that is to be completed within 60 days for projects involving under 200 poles, and five additional days for projects with more than 200 poles.
This order does not apply to “complex” work, including pole installation, work not permitted by the utility company, and that which can pose a risk of outages or damages to the facilities.
The regulator also requires that the pole owners maintain a virtual database – to be available within 30 days after tariff approval – with approved contractors allowed to perform the make-ready work and provide operational and technical reference materials and construction standards for the poles to assist in the work. The regulator also said attachers can request from the pole owner approval of their own contractors.
On timeliness, the regulator also directed the pole owners to amend their tariffs to replace its existing timelines for work make-ready work.
For 20 poles and fewer, the regulator ordered 40 days for simple, and 60 for complex, work, which includes assessing an attachment application, completing a survey of poles and granting or denying access, and sending the costs to attach. For 21 to 50 poles, 75 and 90 days, respectively; 120 and 150 days, respectively, for 51 to 200 poles; and 180 and 115 days and good faith negotiations, respectively, for 201 poles or more.
In cases where timelines cannot be reasonably met, the regulator said the third party should be able to attach its equipment before that work is done – provided there is engineering sign-off and there’s sufficient space on the pole.
On that note, the regulator also requires that the pole owner tariffs be amended to include additional transparency with respect to spare capacity on poles. Pole owners can reserve space on the pole for future use, but if in the process of arranging wires they find additional space, the CRTC requires that that space be identified for third party use.
These rules apply to poles wholly owned by the telecom and partly owned with a utility, with the latter’s space on the structure being outside of the CRTC’s jurisdiction.
“We are pleased the CRTC is removing barriers so more service providers can get fair and efficient access to poles,” said Rogers in a statement. “This will promote greater competition and help bring greater wireless and internet connectivity to more communities across Canada.” Bell said it was still reviewing the decision.
The CRTC drew on reasons given by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission decisions on similar matters, including on implementing a one-touch make-ready work regime.
As such, the regulator is requiring that the pole owners amend their tariffs to allow a single team of contractors to put in the work for multiple attachers in one go, so as to streamline the process.
The regulator is also encouraging the establishment of “coordination tables,” as seen in Quebec, that include government, utilities and telecommunications representatives to deal with pole access issues.
