Resolving Issues and Reducing the Risks of Unauthorized Attachments

If you’ve been in the world of pole attachments for any amount of time, you probably know that the attachment process is complicated. 

In fact, “complicated” is a pretty dramatic understatement. The demands and regulations of the make ready process are extensive, to say the least. 

But all those midspan clearances and guying rules are essential. They ensure that new attachments are built safely and won’t jeopardize the grid or endanger workers. We’re playing with high stakes when it comes to pole attachments–poor engineering threatens the grid, reliability, and the lives of the crews working on the poles. 

Unfortunately, even the best make ready process can’t protect against unauthorized attachments. 

Breaking the Rules to Beat the Clock

When an attacher skips the make ready process and attaches without permission we end up with unauthorized attachments. 

In some ways, the root cause of illegal attachments comes back to calendar days—the faster an attacher can get on the pole the faster they can start providing services to new customers. Oftentimes providers get slowed down at the one-yard line, waiting for incumbents (read: their competitors) to make space on the pole for the new attachment. 

If attachers lose patience while waiting for existing attachers to perform their construction they may resort to skipping the application process as a whole.

The problem isn’t that attachers aren’t paying rent to be on the pole (although that’s usually true too). 

The real issue comes back to safety. When applications don’t go through the make ready process there’s no guarantee that the new cable adheres to clearance regulations, passes pole loading analysis, or meets safety standards. It’s a huge risk for anyone who touches the pole. 

When illegal attachments go unchecked they weaken the entire grid and put workers in danger. Unless teams are actively conducting system-wide audits, attachers tend to get away with it. 

Until that is, something goes wrong. Maybe a pole’s overloaded, or there’s an outage that could have been avoided, or someone gets hurt. Whatever it is, pole owners respond by tightening down their standards. More aggressive safety measures further frustrate and delay attachers who follow the make ready process. 

Unauthorized attachments breed distrust and feed into the vicious cycle within the pole attachments process. 

The Pole Owner’s Dilemma

At this point, joint use departments are in an especially tough situation. They know there are  illegal attachments undermining the grid. When issues arise because of those attachments, the pole owner assumes fault. But they’re stuck because:

1. Even though they know unauthorized attachments are out there they don’t know where they are. 

2. They’re already facing a flood of application requests that are coming through the correct channels. 

They can’t let safety hazards go unchecked, but checking and fixing safety hazards feels near-impossible. 

But there is hope, both for avoiding unauthorized attachments with one-touch make ready and fixing them when they occur. 

Harnessing One-Touch Make Ready

OTMR doesn’t guarantee faster attachments but it does help new applicants avoid delays due to existing attachers stalling.

Once the pole owner has completed power make ready according to their standards, an approved OTMR contractor can engineer the simple make ready plan and perform construction for all incumbent attachers.

One-touch contractors are hired by the attacher, but have a reputation to uphold with pole owners. As a result, they are incentivized to keep the process moving quickly but not at the expense of safety.

Post-construction inspections are a crucial part of OTMR and ensuring safety. PCI checks the poles that have gone through the make ready process to make sure the engineering design has been followed in construction. 

Processing Illegal Attachments 

Attachment audits can be performed at regular intervals to correct, update, and maintain records. They can also be used to identify unauthorized attachers. Getting eyes on every pole and its attachments reveals who’s on the pole and whether they’re allowed to be.  

When illegal attachments are identified, they can be put through either a removal process or through an engineering process that ensures they adhere to the pole owner’s safety standards. 

Healthy joint use requires a robust make ready process that includes OTMR. PCI, and system-wide attachment audits that help keep records updated and accurate. 

Unauthorized attachments create safety violations and erode trust between pole owners and attachers. But better practices encourage better relationships and improve the pole attachments process for all parties. 

Thanks for reading! Resolving unauthorized attachments feels daunting, but using Katapult Pro you can conduct audits on the same platform you use to call make ready to fix illegal attachments faster and verify your records. Reach out to us at hello@katapultengineering.com for more info on attachment audits, hosted records, or make ready tools!