FCC Slams Door On Higher Pole Attachment Rates

After kicking open a door to potential annual pole attachment rental increases in the hundreds of millions of dollars when it adopted its February 2015 Net Neutrality order, the Federal Communications Commission yesterday released an order unanimously granting a four-year-old petition for reconsideration.  A number of cable, broadband, and telecommunications industry players filed the petition to eliminate pole-attachment rate disparities and complexities between "rural" and "urban" areas and between and among various defined classes of electronic communication providers.  Yesterday's ruling eliminates remaining loopholes that could have dramatically raised cable operator pole rentals and electric-utility windfalls resulting from the FCC's February 2015 Net Neutrality order (which we analyzed here) that defined "Broadband Internet Access Service" as a "telecommunications service." Specifically, yesterday's ruling (addressing the petitions of the National Cable and