CHARLESTON, W.Va. \u2014 The West Virginia Public Service Commission has issued an order to try and make peace in the complicated and often cumbersome effort to install broadband internet service in West Virginia. The PSC order authorized the temporary use of all utility poles for broadband providers.<\/p>\n
PSC Chairwoman Charlotte Lane appeared on MetroNews Talkline Wednesday and said the PSC needed to find a path forward for all of those tied to the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cBroadband is really important for the state of West Virginia and its citizens. With the advent of trying to get more broadband to West Virginians, problems have arisen between broadband providers and the utilities,\u201d said Lane.<\/p>\n
The problems regard who is allowed to string wires on poles when they are owned by another company. The PSC has processes and agreements in place historically, but this is a dispute which is new with a new technology. Lane said they\u2019re trying to navigate through it as best they can.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve made a lot of progress, but some of these issues still remain and the result is a hinderance to getting broadband to West Virginians. That is unacceptable,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest argument is who pays for the pole and who maintains the pole. Lane said that\u2019s the area where the PSC has to be the impartial referee.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what our order does is make it clear it\u2019s not a one-size fits all, but it\u2019s specific and if the broadband provider should bare a part of the cost then they\u2019ll bare part of the cost, but they should not bare ALL of the cost,\u201d Lane explained. \u201cThese orders will provide a lot of clarification and the parties themselves will be able to work out who should be paying and how much they should be paying. If they don\u2019t, they can come back to the Commission again.\u201d<\/p>\n
To achieve broadband deployment, broadband providers need to attach their communication lines to existing utility poles. The pole owners, usually electric utilities or telephone companies, are required to share space on the poles. The state has an estimated 2.5 million poles, the majority of which are owned by electric power companies.<\/p>\n
The Commission issued General Order No. 261.3 and made two other rulings toward clarifying the rights and obligations of entities \u2014 cable TV and broadband providers \u2014 wishing to attach to utility poles, and the pole owners. The changes are effective immediately.<\/p>\n
In a press release, the PSC noted, \u201cThe Commission expects the utility owners of the necessary infrastructure, the utility poles, to expedite, not hinder, attachments that will accelerate access to sorely needed broadband throughout West Virginia,\u201d the order said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLESTON, W.Va. \u2014 The West Virginia Public Service Commission has issued an order to try and make peace…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[174,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-48331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-internet","9":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}