DAS In Action: DAS firms need to respect utilities

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Distributed Antenna System (DAS) providers need to understand the safety and reliability concerns of utility companies if they want to avoid contentious relationships over pole attachments, said NextG Networks Inc.’s Norine Luker, senior director, utility administration at the DAS provider.
Speaking on a panel session during PCIA’s DAS Forum “DAS in Action: Capital View” summer program, Luker said her perspective on utilities changed once she acknowledged their primary concern was safety and reliability.
Utility companies and DAS providers are often at odds because under federal law, utilities are forced to let communications companies attach to their poles. However, utility companies say the blanket law does not take into account that some poles do not have enough room for communications companies, which need to be at the top of the pole. In addition, utilities maintain they are subsidizing the deployment of broadband services at the expense of their employees’ safety. Utility companies have taken the Federal Communications Commission to court over April 7 pole-attachment rulings that they say are unfair.
Despite federal regulations, communications needs are always going to be secondary considerations for utility companies, said Tim Gasser, product manager, wireless collocation, Puget Sound Energy and member of the board of directors of the Utilisite Council, in a morning session Wednesday. “There is no fairy godmother.”
As wireless operators and tower owners increasingly use DAS equipment to get coverage in hard-to-reach areas and high-capacity venues, they are more likely to continue to butt heads. The DAS Forum is a unit of PCIA focused on education and advocacy of indoor and outdoor DAS deployments and yesterday morning’s session, aptly entitled: “From Frenemies to Partners” is one way to educate members and nonmembers.
Once NextG Networks Inc. approached utilities understanding their safety concerns, the relationship between the DAS provider and the utility became easier, Luker said. “When you are working around the extraordinary hazardous materials they are working around,” it is important to realize safety and reliability are top concerns, Luker said.
It is important for DAS providers to participate in developing new safety codes that utilities follow, and respect the existing codes, Luker said. Network vendors also should work to continue to shrink the size of equipment that is going to be housed on the utility pole. “Size does matter,” Gasser said. “The smaller the antenna, the more likely we can accommodate you on the existing pole.”
Utilities cannot be forced to upgrade their pole to accommodate communications providers and DAS providers’ equipment is not going to be a priority for utilities when outages occur, Gasser commented. “If we lose a structure, there’s going to be some service outages for you.” DAS providers’ best bet is to use contractors approved by the utility companies to get their equipment back up and running, but those contractors will be employed by the utility companies first.