[igjeff]

As others have mentioned, the poles in Louisville are owned mostly by a mix of AT&T (about 40%) and our local power utility (Louisville, Gas & Electric; LG&E) (about 60%).

But pole ownership really isn't relevant, here. The right for new companies to attach to the poles isn't in doubt, and isn't part of this dispute.

The dispute here is part of the make ready process...who has the right to rearrange the wires already on the pole to make space for the new attacher? Even the right to have the space made available isn't in doubt...it's merely who does the actual work of making it available.

[jessaustin]

Having worked at a CLEC in the mid-2000s, I can well imagine the pain involved in ATT "making ready" a utility pole. If they have a 60-day window, then in the typical case, on day 58 they'll bounce your work order with some nonsensical reason code. So you hurry to follow up with your service rep that day, but she'll have to "investigate", which will take until the weekend, and then you'll get a "just resubmit it" on next Tuesday. Then if you're lucky the made_ready status in the database will change sometime in the next 60 days. At no point will a tech actually visit the pole in question. They just figure that it's right and proper for a competitor of theirs to have to wait three months to serve a customer.