Poles Apart: Infrastructure Industry vs. Communications Workers

Controversy is bubbling up over the FCC’s draft plan to vote this week on allowing “one-touch make-ready”(OTMR) for most pole attachments and further reform its pole attachment policies. The concept is, the new attacher or an approved contractor would perform all work to prepare the pole, rather than each attacher performing the work separately. More than 1,000 public comments have been filed to the Commission on the issue so far.

Utilities, carriers and their infrastructure groups pushed for the changes. The Power and Communication Contractors (PCCA), for example, says the updates would avoid multiple truck rolls, expedite the attachment process and reduce service disruption to consumers. “The OTMR option would apply only to ‘simple’ make-ready work and would not be available for ‘complex’ work involving electric-supply facilities that poses greater safety threats or is more likely to cause an outage or damage,” PCCA told the Commission. 

The Wireless Infrastructure Association said removing the barriers to deployment will bring “much-needed predictability and clarity” to deployment in a recent lobbying visit to the agency. Continue Reading