State research record

District of Columbia pole attachment rules, in writing and dated.

Who regulates the pole you are attaching to in District of Columbia, what rate standard applies, where a dispute actually goes and whether cooperative and municipal poles are covered. This is the record we work from, published so you can read it yourself.

Record dated September 21, 2026 · certified under Section 224(c) · 5 authorities cited
The record

District of Columbia

District of ColumbiaDC

Certified under Section 224(c)Record dated September 21, 2026
Cooperative poles
Not applicable. No electric cooperative owns distribution poles in the District
Municipal poles
No. District owned streetlight poles and federal poles sit outside Section 224 and outside the Commission's pole attachment rules
Rate standard
State reasonableness standard. The Commission must ensure that pole attachment rates, terms and conditions are just and reasonable under its own rules, rather than applying an FCC formula
Where a dispute goes
Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia, by Application under 15 DCMR 1601 where the parties cannot agree on the use of a utility's facilities or the compensation for it, or by Complaint under 15 DCMR 1603
Confidence
High confidence on certification proved two ways, on all seven sections of 15 DCMR chapter 16 and on the governing sections of the D.C. Official Code, every one read in full; Provisional on the owner map, the counts and the BEAD figures. No decided Commission pole attachment case was reached, so none is relied on

Authorities15 DCMR 1600.215 DCMR 1601 and 1603D.C. Official Code 34-1102D.C. Official Code 34-1253.03FCC DA 22-630

Read the chip above as one fact and no more: whether District of Columbia has certified under Section 224(c) that it regulates pole attachments itself. It does not settle your pole. Cooperative and municipal poles sit outside federal jurisdiction whether or not a state has certified, so the two owner class lines are the ones that answer the question for the invoice in front of you.

This record is worked from the statute and the order that made it rather than from a summary of one. The confidence line is tied to its source: where a conclusion rests on weaker ground the record says so, because a hedge you can see is what makes the confident answers worth believing. The method is set out in how PoleProof researches and verifies, and how a cleared rule enters an audit is on the methodology page.

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Scope

How to use this, and how to check it

Every conclusion above names the authority it rests on, so you can go read that authority and decide whether you agree. That is the point of publishing the record rather than asserting the result.

This is general information about the rules and it is not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for your own counsel on a specific dispute. PoleProof is not a law firm. PoleProof performs financial and cost review of what you have been billed rather than engineering evaluation of what the pole owner determined was necessary. Rules change, and this record carries the date it was worked so you can see how current it is.

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