Canada: Pole Attachment Charge Approved By OEB Upheld On Appeal [telecom]

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by Fred D. Cass

The Ontario Divisional Court has issued a decision dismissing an appeal with respect to the charge approved by the Ontario Energy Board for wireline attachments to electricity distribution poles. The appeal arose from the OEB's policy review of miscellaneous rates and charges applied by electricity distributors for specific activities or services. The province-wide pole attachment charge, which applies by default when a utility-specific pole attachment charge has not been approved for a particular electricity distributor, had not been changed since 2005 and the OEB prioritized wireline pole attachments as a first component of the first phase of its policy review.