Update: FCC limits the extent of its pole ownership preemption, as it tries to defend it against appeals

9 August 2019 by Steve Blum
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Update, 9 August 2019.

In its brief, the FCC backed down from what appeared to be a blanket assertion that all publicly owned property within the public right of way is the same thing as the public right of way. This preemption of local property rights only applies “when the property in question is controlled by the same government entity that controls the rights-of-way”, the brief said.

By that reasoning, if a city owns a light pole along a road controlled by a state agency such as Caltrans, it can charge a mobile carrier as much as it wants to use it. But the rent for another city pole, located just around the corner on a side street maintained by the city, would be limited to $270 a year. And that’s just a simple example. California has a complex web of jurisdictions, with federal, state, county, city, special district and tribal authority constantly overlapping.

The FCC brief also goes through considerable legal contortions to extend its preemption to publicly-owned electric utilities, even if those utilities don’t control the right of way in question. I’m still trying to unravel that.

Whatever else the FCC thinks it’s doing, it is not making things simpler for cities or mobile carriers.


The Federal Communications Commission defended its sweeping preemption of local government property rights, permitting authority and control of the public right of way in a (not so) brief filed last night with the San Francisco-based ninth circuit federal appeals court. Click here for the full set. At first glance, it appears to restate previous arguments made in its original orders and in subsequent court proceedings. It’s 187 pages, with nearly 700 pages of back up documents. I’ll have a summary on Monday, but if there are hidden gems I’ll post an update.

Links to petitions, court documents and background material are here.