Facilities Joint Use

The Joint Use activity will provide a forum for electric power utilities, telecom and cable companies, regulators, etc. to coordinate and develop consistent approaches, methodologies and rules for the sharing and co-location of equipment with electric Transmission & Distribution (T&D) facilities for communications such as antennae and/or cable.

With the emergence of new communications networks and emerging technologies which depend on widely distributed communications {e.g. 5G and Internet of Things (IoT)}, the needs of vertical real-estate for use in communications is expected to dramatically increase in the coming years. While electric T&D facilities provide an excellent platform to help meet these needs, there are significant safety and reliability issues associated with their use.

The objective of this group will be to coordinate those issues and to develop both consistent approaches amongst companies involved in joint-use and standards and/or worker certifications for workers involved in joint-use attachments.

Many of the rules for attachments to electric facilities are covered in the National Electrical Safety Code^® (NESC^®) and include clearance requirements and high-level work rules for workers who are near live conductors. This group will concentrate on issues such as loading vs. design and resiliency across networks, inclusive of restoration and disaster recovery.

Develop consistent rules, agreements, and/or methodologies for the evaluation and inter-company cooperation on managing pole attachments on Electric Utility infrastructure.

Explore future work to focus on certification of workers for increased safety/reliability, based on proximity to active conductors.

Develop a plan for migration to an industry alliance, in accordance with the expectations of the IC activity participants.

We invite organizations in the following areas or other interested stakeholders to participate:

• Electric Utilities
• Telecom Companies
• Cable Companies
• State Regulators
• Communications Equipment Companies

To learn more about the program and how to join the Facilities Joint Use activity, please express your interest by sending an inquiry to the activity chair whose information can be found in the Contacts section.