small cells

We might know by next summer if local governments will be able to lease public property, such as street lights, at fair market rates to private wireless companies, or whether those rates will be capped at $270 per pole per year.

The challenge by cities and counties to the Federal Communications Commission’s preemption of local ownership of public assets in the public right of way, and control of the public right of way itself, will be heard in Pasadena in February.… More

The good news is that the appeal of the Federal Communications Commission’s preemption of local ownership of streetlight poles will be fast tracked. The not so good news – which isn’t exactly news to people who follow such things – is that fast is a relative term.

An order issued yesterday by the ninth circuit federal appellate court in San Francisco granted a request “to expedite oral argument” in the case, made by dozens of local governments.… More

Local governments from around the U.S. asked the federal appeals court in San Francisco to speed up consideration of their challenge to the Federal Communications Commission preemption of local ownership and control of the public right of way and assets located in it, such as street light poles and traffic signals.

In a motion filed last month, they told judges that on the one hand, disputes are piling up, and on the other, the FCC is aggressively pushing ahead…

First, there are several other cases progressing through the lower courts that will be affected by the outcome of this appeal…Delay in resolution will simply complicate the work of district courts and Circuit Courts of Appeal throughout the country, as more applications are filed and more disputes arise.

The rounds of written arguments and counter arguments in the appeals of last year’s FCC decisions preempting state and local governments’ control of public right of ways and ownership of property, such as street light poles and traffic signals, they install there is drawing to a close. Several groups filed rebuttals to the FCC’s defence of its preemption. The primary opposition came from a reply brief filed by a long list of cities and counties in the federal appeals court based in San Francisco, which is hearing the combined challenges to two sweeping rulings made by the FCC last year.… More

The FCC’s subservience to the telecommunications companies it’s supposed to regulating – or at least the grovelling of its republican majority – is highlighted by the industry’s defence of sweeping preemptions issued by the commission last year. In a brief filed with the San Francisco-based ninth circuit federal appeals court, carriers and their lobbyists effectively admit they were gaming the judicial system when they tried to steer the case to a friendlier court, with the collusion of the FCC.… More

Verizon is using a legally shaky ruling by the Federal Communications Commission to shake down the City of Rochester, New York. Last year, the FCC ruled that publicly owned property, such as light poles or traffic signals, located in the public right of way were, in fact, part of the public right of way and not municipal property.

Rochester wants to charge Verizon up to $1,500 a year in rental fees for the use of city-owned poles in the public right of way.… More

Even if a federal appeals court buys arguments made by the Federal Communications Commission and its good friends in the mobile telecoms industry, and allows last year’s preemption of local ownership of light poles and other municipal property in the public right of way to stand, it might not matter in California, or any other state “which regulates the rates, terms, and conditions for pole attachments”.

As it tries to defend its wide-ranging preemption against challenges being heard by a federal appeals court in San Francisco, the FCC filed another set of arguments last week saying its authority, at least as far as utility poles are concerned, comes from a particular section of the communications act of 1996.… More