Federal Government Shouldn’t Intervene on Rights-of-Way Issues, Cities Say
Local governments essentially told the FCC to back off, in response to an April 7 notice of inquiry seeking comments on improving government policies for access to rights of way and wireless facilities siting. The National Broadband Plan last year concluded that rates, terms, and conditions for access to rights of way can have a significant impact on broadband deployment. In late 2009, the FCC imposed a “shot clock” on local zoning decisions for cell towers and other wireless facilities, which met with similar push back from local governments.
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The city of Allentown, Pa., said it has developed “considerable expertise” in balancing interests as it controls local rights of way (http://xrl.us/bk2ej6). “By adopting rules in this area, the Commission could disrupt this process at substantial cost to local taxpayers and to the local economy,” the city said. “We believe that a basic respect for federalism, a fair reading of the Constitution and the Communications Act, and an honest assessment of the Commission’s limited expertise on local land use matters all point to the same conclusion: this is no place for federal regulation."
"The industry has created the subterfuge that, but for municipal rights-of-way management and compensation, the nation would be blanketed with broadband,” Arlington, Texas, said (http://xrl.us/bk2fcs). “However, the lack of broadband deployment is not in urban America where such regulations exist but rather in rural America where it just simply is not as financially profitable for the industry to deploy and serve."
Denver said broadband service is already available to 99.9 percent of the households and businesses there. “There is no evidence that our policies or charges with respect to placement of facilities in the rights-of-way or on City property (such as water towers) have discouraged broadband deployment,” Denver said (http://xrl.us/bk2ep7). “Our community welcomes broadband deployment, and our policies allow us to work with any company willing to provide service."
Thirteen cities in the suburbs of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., which refer to themselves at the Coalition Cities, said they have in place “sophisticated and complex” rights-of-way rules, which are “far more detailed and demanding than many rural Minnesota communities.” Yet these rules have not been a bar to broadband deployment, they said (http://xrl.us/bk2e7c). The “policies of the Coalition Cities have in fact resulted in ubiquitous broadband coverage,” the cities said. A “one size fits all” set of federal regulatory standards is “simply not feasible and would only result in disruption of a … process that is working smoothly in the Coalition Cities."
The League of Oregon Cities recently commissioned a report on broadband deployment in the state, which found that cities there understand the importance of broadband and will “go to great lengths” to get it, the league said in a filing (http://xrl.us/bk2e8w). “Contrary to the assumptions in the Notice, the League’s report did not find that cities are what stand in the way of broadband deployment,” the filing said. “Instead, the League’s report found that the obstacle to broadband deployment is hesitation on the part of industry to make capital investments that do not immediately produce positive returns.”