Pennsylvania Slashes Pole-Attachment Rates in First Dispute Resolution

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission aims to spur broadband with its first pole-attachment dispute resolution since the state asserted authority in March by reverse preempting the FCC, Chairman Gladys Brown Dutrieuille said at Thursday's virtual meeting. Commissioners voted unanimously to reduce telecom attachment rates FirstEnergy charges Verizon. In other states that day, California Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D) announced a second go at her Broadband for All bill and Colorado’s Broadband Advisory Board held its first meeting.

Verizon complained to the FCC in November 2019 that FirstEnergy companies charged unlawfully and unreasonably high rates for pole attachments (see 1911270016). The federal agency transferred the dispute to Pennsylvania in March after the PUC took authority over such matters (see 2003230037).

Pole-attachment rates can affect broadband deployment levels, said Brown Dutrieuille. The COVID-19 “pandemic demonstrates the critical role that broadband plays in Pennsylvania, and it is my hope that Verizon will use a significant portion of the projected savings to augment its planned investment.” Doing so “should make broadband more available and affordable throughout Verizon’s service territory.” Commissioners also voted 4-0 Thursday to increase the Pennsylvania USF surcharge to 2.17% of average monthly intrastate end-user retail telecom revenue, up slightly from last year’s rate of 2.08%.

Verizon’s reduced pole-attachment rate will be retroactive to Nov. 20, 2019, and the carrier will get a refund for what it overpaid since then, under a 4-0 approved joint motion by Brown Dutrieuille and Commissioner John Coleman. The PUC agreed Verizon should pay the FCC’s telecom rate but denied the carrier’s request that refunds go back to July 12, 2011, the date of the FCC’s first pole attachment order. FirstEnergy will review the final PUC order when it's released, a spokesperson said. Verizon didn’t comment.

In California, Gonzalez said she will introduce a broadband bill Monday in the legislature. It’s a revision of last session’s SB-1130, her bill that cleared the Senate but never got a vote in the Assembly (see 2008310034). Broadband is an “urgent necessity, much like any other utility,” the state senator said on a livestreamed news conference. Common Sense, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Rural County Representatives of California supported the bill.

The revised version could provide at least $1 billion in state broadband money, including about $70 million each year from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), plus bond financing from a new fund created by the bill, Gonzalez said. It would remove a 2022 sunset for the current CASF surcharge while requiring a biennial CASF audit and capping the monthly fee at 23 cents per line. The California PUC in October raised the CASF surcharge to 1.019% of intrastate revenue. The bill would change CASF contribution to a connections-based mechanism, a Gonzalez spokesperson said.

The proposal would no longer require 25 Mbps symmetrical download and upload speeds, though it sets a 100 Mbps download goal, like Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) August executive order (see 2008180045). “The infrastructure project must deploy broadband access speeds of 25/3, or the current federal definition of speed standard, whichever is higher,” the Gonzalez spokesperson said. “This language allows the flexibility to adjust to higher standards should the FCC change those standards in the future.” The bill includes language to encourage future-proof fiber, Gonzalez noted in the news conference, adding that it’s only a first draft.

EFF is OK with the proposed reduction in speed standard, “but only because the legislation makes a massive investment in public broadband and all the local governments ... indicate they plan to build fiber and open access fiber with state support,” emailed EFF Senior Legislative Council Ernesto Falcon. “CASF program mission and goals will shift if the public sector is more heavily involved and it will be more targeted towards the edges of communities, rather than be the heart of the solution to California's broadband problems.”

“We have not seen the exact language,” California Cable & Telecommunications Association President Carolyn McIntyre emailed Thursday. Frontier Communications declined to comment. AT&T didn’t comment.

Colorado’s new Broadband Advisory Board approved a charter and bylaws at a virtual meeting Thursday. It elected newly appointed Colorado Chief Information Officer Tony Neal-Graves as chair and the state Transportation Department’s Bob Fifer as vice chair. Gov. Jared Polis (D) created the group in an Oct. 30 executive order to coordinate state broadband efforts (see 2010300022). The board next meets Dec. 17.