WIA Defends FCC August Infrastructure Order; Utilities Urge Reconsideration
The FCC’s August infrastructure order “correctly and lawfully concluded that state and local moratoria on the deployment of telecommunications facilities violate Section 253(a) of the Communications Act,” the Wireless Infrastructure Association said, posted Tuesday in docket 17-84. Those seeking reconsideration…
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failed to provide grounds, WIA said. The FCC has broad authority to interpret Section 253 and did so correctly, it said. The ruling isn’t a taking violation of the Constitution because it didn’t require localities to grant wireless siting applications or diminish property value, WIA said. A local group seeking recon, the Smart Communities and Special Districts Coalition, says wireless carriers didn’t respond substantively to its petition (see 1811190044). Energy companies responded to telecom industry opposition to a Coalition for Concerned Utilities petition to reconsider pole-attachment rate and process changes in the order (see 1811130048). “Pole attachments issues are complex, with many interested parties, issues and moving parts,” CCU replied. “To achieve our common goals, one set of attachers should not benefit at the expense of another," CCU said, and "newly-imposed regulations must be reconciled with conflicting regulations and the Pole Attachment Act, efficiencies should be added to speed deployment, and unnecessary roadblocks to future broadband deployment should be eliminated.” The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association agreed with utilities it’s dangerous to allow a self-help remedy or overlashing without sufficient oversight. Utility pole owners should be able to recover costs including for overlashing reviews and preparing make-ready estimates, NRECA said. Don’t “adopt a presumption in favor of providing ILECs with regulated rates for newly renewed joint use agreements and the Commission should not cap the rate at the pre-2011 Telecom rate in the event that a utility rebuts the presumption,” replied the Edison Electric Institute and Utilities Technology Council.