State research record

New Hampshire pole attachment rules, in writing and dated.

Who regulates the pole you are attaching to in New Hampshire, 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 October 2, 2026 · certified under Section 224(c) · 6 authorities cited
The record

New Hampshire

New HampshireNH

Certified under Section 224(c)Record dated October 2, 2026
Cooperative poles
Yes. Cooperative poles sit inside the state pole regime by express words in the statutory definition of a pole, and inside whichever certificate the cooperative has on file, because a deregulated cooperative is named expressly in that definition and a regulated one is a public utility.
Municipal poles
No. A municipal electric utility operating within its corporate limits is excepted from the definition of public utility, so its poles are not poles within the state statute and neither state chapter reaches it as an owner. It is outside the federal statute as well, so the attachment agreement governs.
Rate standard
No rate formula is in force. The Commission applies a multi factor reasonableness test in which the FCC formula is one factor it must consider rather than a ceiling or a presumptive rate. An attachment by a cable, wireless or competitive carrier to an electric or incumbent telephone pole takes a six factor test, and every other attachment takes the same test without the FCC formula factor.
Where a dispute goes
New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission, by petition after good faith negotiation. The one forum is split between two agencies by design: rates and dispute resolution sit with the Commission, and access, timelines and make ready sit with the Department of Energy under a separate chapter, so a client that has read only one chapter has read half the regime. Municipal electric poles have no state forum and are governed by the attachment agreement.
Confidence
High confidence on the certification, the rate standard, the two agency split and the owner class treatment, each read in full by the run; Provisional on the owner inventory and pole counts, the state decisions, the stalled rulemaking record and the BEAD figures.

AuthoritiesRSA 374:34-a, IRSA 362:2, IRSA 301:57Puc 1303.06Puc 1303.02FCC DA 22-630

Read the chip above as one fact and no more: whether New Hampshire 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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