Commissioners OK filing a motion with PUCO to get broadband project moving

The Richland County commissioners took action Tuesday to try to get work moving on a multi-million dollar project to install broadband internet service to rural areas in the northern part of the county.

The board approved a resolution that will be filed with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio asking the agency to act on a complaint filed against American Electric Power over a delay in the permitting process to allow internet access lines to be installed on the company’s poles.

Commissioners voted in May to allocate $2 million of the county’s American Rescue Plan Act funds to Charter Communications, doing business as Spectrum, to help cover part of the estimated $5 million total cost with additional funding from an Ohio residential broadband expansion grant and in-kind spending by Charter. The project involves installation of fiber optic lines to 748 addresses, mostly north of U.S. 30 along township, county and state routes.

Charter representative Ashley Karlan told commissioners on Tuesday that her company filed 86,000 permitting requests — including 2,200 for Richland County — from May through August to install the fiber optics on AEP poles. To date, AEP has approved only 16% of the permits, none in Richland County, even though PUCO rules call for pole surveys that are required for the permits to be completed within 30 to 45 days.

Charter representative: 'We're really concerned with that'

“We’re really concerned with that. It’s definitely delaying our build out of broadband and making it difficult to meet the deadlines through the State of Ohio,” Karlan said.

Commissioner Tony Vero said he has had communications with AEP and conversations with the PUCO and that AEP told him the company is not dragging its feet and that the problem is the unprecedented number of permit requests because of the involvement of ARPA dollars. He said they also pointed out that the poles are in different geographic locations, which requires engineers to go out and do load studies and find new locations for poles that need to be replaced.

“It’s not as easy as a stamp of approval and move on,” Vero added.

Karlan agreed that the number of permit applications for broadband deployment projects is unprecedented but pointed out that Charter has tried every self-mediation effort it can including offering AEP financial support and offering to hire contractors of their choosing to help with the process.

Filing with PUCO called a 'last-ditch effort'

“All of our offers have been rejected,” she said. “We have tried everything we know to try to help them speed up this process, get out there and look at the poles and we pay for the make ready, so if there’s a pole that needs to be replaced, it comes out of our pocket. And so the filing with the PUCO is really a last-ditch effort to try and get them to speed up the process.”

Under federal regulations, projects using ARPA dollars must be completed by the end of 2026. Karlan said Charter does not know if it can meet the deadline because of the permit delay and that she does not know the specifics of why AEP turned down the offers of help.

County Business Manager Andrew Keller told commissioners before their unanimous vote that they need to do everything they can to keep the pressure on AEP to issue the permits for Richland County residents.

“AEP is a regulated utility doing business in Ohio, and they are required to adjudicate these pole permit applications in a timely period,” he added.

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Commissioners file motion with PUCO to speed up broadband project