Important Note – At any Pole Hearings in your town, make sure that anyone attaching wires to poles leaves room for the town’s wires, even if it means they have to pay for new poles. Otherwise, this could add a lot to the town’s “make ready” costs when you build your network.

First, figure out how many of each type of pole owned by each utility you have in town. If you don’t have a pole survey done yet, then the Town Data and Pricing Worksheet has estimates.

_____ Verizon
_____NGrid/MECO
_____ Eversource/WEMCO

Next, figure out who are the contact/s in your town who will be dealing with all the aspects related to working with the utility companies: Name, phone, address, email, fax number.

In most cases this will be either your town administrator or MLP manager if you have one. This person will be the repository for communications with the utilities and will distribute items as they receive them to the correct parties. For example, legal docs will be sent to your town lawyer, agreements to sign sent to MLP board or Selectboard, bills sent to the treasurer.

Finally, find out who to contact to get copies of your town’s insurance policies (insurance binder) and surety bonds. Most probably this is your MIIA contact.

The overall process:

1. The town’s MLP signs and submits the attachment agreement. This is the initial contract between the town’s MLP and the utility company stating the terms of getting permission to hang fiber on their poles. ($300-$425 fee) There is also a fee to generate and submit a surety bond to each utility. This is based on the number of poles and is generally 1% of the cost of the Surety Bond sections you see below. For example, for 51-500 poles you need a security of $75000 which costs $750 in bond fees. These bond fees are due ANNUALLY and should be included as part of your MLP operating budget.
2. A pole survey vendor goes out throughout your town and makes a list of all the utility poles and collects associated information such as GPS location, street name, and which utility owns the pole.
3. WG&E, or whoever you hire for this purpose, submits pole applications on behalf of town asking permission to hang fiber on specific, named poles throughout your town. (Per pole fee ranging from $10 -$85)
4. The utility does a “ride out” to assess all of the poles included on your application to make sure it can accommodate the fiber. If not, they will estimate how much it will cost to repair the pole, move existing wires, replace the pole or do any other kind of “make ready” work. Your agent (e.g. WG&E) sends an engineer on the “ride out” to negotiate on your behalf.
5. The utility submits a “make ready” bill to your town based on their estimates for all the work up-front. This is a not-to-exceed amount for NationalGrid. For Eversource and Verizon they do a true up at the end. Any unused portion will be returned or you will be billed for the excess.
6. The utility (and contractors) perform the “make ready” work and when it is complete will submit pole licenses so you have the go-ahead to attach fiber.
7. Each year you pay an ongoing pole rental fee to the utilities ranging from $6 – $14 per pole.

How to do attachment agreements: