CTIA, Cable Support Prescriptive Maine Pole Attachment Rates

were due Friday in case 2019-00028. Lincolnville Communications, FirstLight Fiber and Otelco proposed a prescriptive, not presumptive, approach at a hearing last month (see 1906190051). Comcast, Charter Communications and other cable companies supported the CLECs' proposed amendment as long as rules don't "mandate an unnecessary and expensive Commission rate approval process." CenturyLink and ExteNet jointly urged the PUC to reject Consolidated Communication's bid to carve out wireless attachments. It's “absurd” to suggest wireless attachments need to placed “on only a single pole or other equipment instead of on a pole that serves an entire pole line,” they said. Consolidated said it stands to lose more than anyone if the PUC replaces Maine’s Chapter 880 rate formula: “Consolidated occupies the unfortunate space of being both one of the largest pole owning utilities in the State and the company engaged in the largest broadband expansion project. Consolidated is in the hapless situation of being a regulated telephone utility in a competitive communications environment.” The telco is wrong that FCC rate fails to adequately compensate pole owners, countered the cable group. “The cost of the entire pole is allocated to the attacher -- but the cost allocation is based on the amount of usable space occupied in proportion to the amount of usable space on the pole,” so “the FCC approach actually reduces a pole owner’s overall costs of pole ownership because the attacher pays a pro-rata share of the fully allocated costs of pole ownership and maintenance, in addition to any upfront, incremental costs that the pole owner incurs in connection with its attachments.”