cable lobby

Decision on the way.

Update: the CPUC unanimously approved the draft decision at its 9 February 2017 meeting.

It’s a bit softer than the total smack down that was originally floated, but the latest draft of a decision that’ll go in front of the California Public Utilities Commission still says that cable companies can’t hang wireless equipment on utility poles with the same carefree abandon as mobile carriers. The reasoning is that the laws that grant cable companies the special privilege to use utility poles and such without having to meet the same standards of service or conduct as telephone companies specifically mention wires, not wireless, and that “if the legislature had intended to provide CATV corporations with a right to attach wireless facilities to utility poles – either by statute or by commission regulations – the legislature would have done so”.… More

Some lobbyists don’t let go of old stereotypes.

Cable companies can’t have wireless privileges because they’re cable and not wireless companies. That’s the gist of a proposed decision that’s in front of the California Public Utilities Commission, and the cable industry’s hired gun lobbyists don’t like it.

Last year, the CPUC changed the rules for attaching telecoms equipment to utility poles and allowed mobile carriers and similarly licensed companies to install wireless gear on utility poles, subject to new cost sharing rules and safety regulations.… More