Street light poles, traffic signal poles: small wireless facilities attachments.

Existing law requires a local publicly owned electric utility to make appropriate space and capacity on and in its utility poles, as defined, and support structures available for use by cable television corporations, video service providers, and telephone corporations. Existing law requires fees adopted to cover the costs to provide this use, and terms and conditions of access, to meet specified requirements, and specifies the manner in which these fees and terms and conditions of access could be challenged. This bill would prohibit a local government or local publicly owned electric utility from unreasonably denying the leasing or licensing of its street light poles or traffic signal poles to communications service providers for the purpose of placing small wireless facilities on those poles. The bill would require that street light poles and traffic signal poles be made available for the placement of small wireless facilities under fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory fees, as provided. The bill would authorize a local government or local publicly owned electric utility to condition access to its street light poles or traffic signal poles on reasonable terms and conditions, including reasonable aesthetic and safety standards. The bill would specify time periods for various actions relative to requests for placement of a small wireless facility by a communications service provider on a street light pole or traffic signal pole. The bill would authorize a local publicly owned electric utility or local government to deny an application for use of a street light pole or traffic signal pole, as applicable, because of insufficient capacity or safety, reliability, or engineering concerns subject to certain conditions. By placing additional requirements upon local publicly owned electric utilities and local governments, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. Existing law, the Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act of 2006, establishes a procedure for the issuance of state franchises for the provision of video service, defined to include cable service and open-video systems, administered by the Public Utilities Commission. The act requires the holder of a state franchise to annually report to the commission, on a census tract basis, specified information relative to availability and usage of broadband and video service. Existing law requires the commission to annually report to the Legislature, by December 31, on an aggregated basis, the information submitted by holders of a state franchise. This bill would require mobile telephony service providers, on or before December 31, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025, to measure and report to the Legislature their progress towards meeting the goal of universal broadband access for each census tract in the state in which the mobile telephony service provider provides wireless broadband service, by reporting the percentage of each census tract it provides wireless broadband service. The bill would authorize mobile telephony service providers to aggregate and submit that information through a third party. Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act is a crime. Because the above-described reporting requirement would be part of the Public Utilities Act and a failure to comply with those requirements would be a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program by creating a new crime. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for specified reasons.