FCC Updates Pole Attachment Rules
The agency adopted a timeline for utilities to respond to contractor approval requests from ISPs.
WASHINGTON, July 24, 2025 – The Federal Communications Commission updated its pole attachment rules Thursday, instituting a controversial new timeline for utilities to respond to ISP requests to use new contractors.
“I acknowledge that balancing the interests of pole owners and attachers is always a difficult task, but the bureau has found good compromises on several points of controversy in today’s order,” FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez said at the agency’s meeting.
The order, approved unanimously, will require utilities to respond within 30 days to broadband providers’ requests to use new contractors to prepare poles for new communications gear. The request would be deemed approved if a utility did not answer in that time.
That point was the subject of fierce lobbying from electric companies and the cable industry. Utilities said it would be unsafe to greenlight contractors without a lengthy vetting process and that they would simply deny unreasonable requests, while cable industry groups countered that in some cases utilities had declined to answer such requests for months and stalled projects.
Utilities and their trade groups had requested the deadline be limited to workers in the communications space – a lower area of the pole further from live power equipment – or for the agency to take comment on the move before instituting it. FCC staff said Thursday the section of the order wasn’t materially altered and wasn’t changed to a proposal.
The FCC said in the public draft of the order that the deadline only applied to utilities confirming whether the proposed contractor meets minimum FCC requirements, and lengthier onboarding could come after.
Pole owners have to approve the contractors that prepare poles for new communications equipment like fiber. When utilities miss deadlines to prepare poles, or if the work required is minimal, ISPs can handle the work themselves and must choose their contractor from a utility-approved list, or propose another for approval.
Broadband providers tend to argue to the FCC that utility companies delay projects by stalling attachment requests or unfairly passing off pole replacement costs. The pole owners say delays are the result of a shortage of qualified contractors.
NCTA, which had asked for the deadline and represents the cable industry, was pleased with the order’s adoption. The group said in a statement that the rules “will benefit communications providers’ broadband deployment efforts to reach unserved and underserved areas, furthering the goal of connecting every American.”
ACA Connects, which represents small and mid-size cable operators, also thanked commissioners “for their focus on empowering broadband providers.” Both said they would stay engaged with the FCC on the issue.
The order would also institute a new 120-day window for prep work in poles’ communications space for attachment orders between 3,000 and 6,000 poles. Previously utilities and ISPs had to negotiate timelines for anything larger than 3,000.
Utility companies had opposed that too, saying large deployments were too complicated and resource intensive for strict timelines, But those concerns were partly alleviated by the FCC also handing down new requirements that ISPs meet and confer with pole owners before submitting attachment requests.
Attachers will have to notify utilities 60 days before submitting an application for more than 300 poles, else they would forfeit rights to the FCC-defined timelines. Attachers would also have to talk in person, online, or via phone with utilities about their coming application within 30 days of giving the advance notice.
“We want to unleash massive new builds across the country, and making it easier to get large deployments cleared is key to doing so,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said. “Today’s action is designed to do just that by encouraging greater collaboration between communications companies and pole-owning utilities on those large batch requests.”
The item would also seek comment on other parts of the agency’s pole attachment rules, including whether to add light poles to the Communications Act’s definition of a pole, something the wireless industry has been after.
That would make it easier for carriers to attach their equipment, as the FCC can set the terms of pole attachment deals between investor-owned utility companies and telecommunications providers. That authority is preempted in 23 states and D.C.
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