State research record

Rhode Island pole attachment rules, in writing and dated.

Who regulates the pole you are attaching to in Rhode Island, 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 6, 2026 · not certified under Section 224(c) · 6 authorities cited
The record

Rhode Island

Rhode IslandRI

Not certified under Section 224(c)Record dated October 6, 2026
Cooperative poles
Does not arise. There is no electric cooperative in Rhode Island. One quasi municipal utility district was admitted as a voting member of a rural electric cooperative trade association, which is an association membership and not a corporate form.
Municipal poles
On the text, yes, and the reason is that the carve out is about water. The definitions interlock so that a quasi municipal electric utility district is a company, and therefore an electric distribution company, and therefore a public utility, the municipal carve out in that definition being expressly and only about public waterworks and water service. No Rhode Island authority holds it, so the class is recorded as conditional rather than settled, and because the state has no pole attachment rule the state regime reaches the owner and not the subject.
Rate standard
No state standard for any attacher on any pole. On an investor owned electric or telephone pole the FCC cable and telecommunications formulae apply unqualified, Rhode Island never having certified, so an attacher there takes every later FCC amendment with no state rulemaking in between. There is no state formula, no band, no filed pole attachment tariff and no pole specific state reasonableness standard. The only attachment charge cap in Rhode Island law binds an authority on a small wireless collocation in the public rights of way, not a pole owner on pole rent.
Where a dispute goes
The FCC Enforcement Bureau on every pole the federal statute reaches, which is every investor owned electric and telephone pole. Rhode Island splits the rate standard from the remedy: the Public Utilities Commission is the rate tribunal, and the Division of Public Utilities and Carriers hears a quasi municipal district on the general duties rather than on any pole provision, the state having no pole attachment rule.
Confidence
High confidence on the certification, the absence of any state pole rate standard, the definitional route to the municipal class and the forum split, each read in full by the run; Provisional on the owner inventory and pole counts, the court decisions, the docket history and the BEAD figures.

AuthoritiesR.I. Gen. Laws 39-1-2R.I. Gen. Laws 39-1-3R.I. Gen. Laws 39-19-6R.I. Gen. Laws 39-32-5815-RICR-30-00-1FCC DA 22-630

Read the chip above as one fact and no more: whether Rhode Island 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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