Washington Administrative Code › Title 480 - Utilities and Transportation Commission › Chapter 480-54 - ATTACHMENT TO TRANSMISSION FACILITIES › Section 480-54-020 - Definitions

Current through Register Vol. 24-14, July 15, 2024
"Attachment"
means any wire, cable, or antenna for
				the transmission of intelligence by telecommunications or television, including
				cable television, light waves, or other phenomena, or for the transmission of
				electricity for light, heat, or power, and any related device, apparatus, or
				auxiliary equipment, installed upon any pole or in any telecommunications,
				electrical, cable television, or communications right of way, duct, conduit,
				manhole or handhole, or other similar facilities owned or controlled, in whole
				or in part, by one or more owners, where the installation has been made with
				the consent of the one or more owners consistent with the rules in this
				chapter.
"Attachment agreement"
means an agreement
				negotiated in good faith between an owner and a utility or licensee
				establishing the rates, terms, and conditions for attachments to the owner's
				facilities.
"Carrying charge"
means the costs the owner incurs
				to own and maintain poles, ducts, or conduits without regard to attachments.
				Those costs are comprised of the owner's administrative, maintenance, and
				depreciation expenses, commission-authorized rate of return on investment, and
				applicable taxes. When used to calculate an attachment rate, the carrying
				charge may be expressed as a percentage of the net pole, duct, or conduit
				investment.
"Communications space"
means the usable space on a
				pole below the communications workers safety zone and above the vertical space
				for meeting ground clearance requirements under the National Electrical Safety
				Code.
"Conduit"
means a structure containing one or more
				ducts, usually placed in the ground, in which cables or wires may be
				installed.
"Duct"
means a single enclosed raceway for
				conductors, cable, or wire.
"Facility"
means a pole, duct, conduit, manhole or
				handhole, right of way, or similar structure on or in which attachments can be
				made. "Facilities" refers to more than one facility.
"Inner duct"
means a duct-like raceway smaller
				than a duct that is inserted into a duct so that the duct may carry multiple
				wires or cables.
"Licensee"
means any person, firm, corporation,
				partnership, company, association, joint stock association, or cooperatively
				organized association, other than a utility, that is authorized to construct
				attachments upon, along, under, or across the public ways.
"Make-ready work"
means engineering or
				construction activities necessary to make a pole, duct, conduit, right of way,
				or other support equipment available for a new attachment, attachment
				modifications, or additional attachments. Such work may include rearrangement
				of existing attachments, installation of additional support for the utility
				pole, or creation of additional capacity, up to and including replacement of an
				existing pole with a taller pole.
"Net cost of a bare pole"
means (a) the original
				investment in poles, including purchase price of poles and fixtures and
				excluding cross-arms and appurtenances, less depreciation reserve and deferred
				federal income taxes associated with the pole investment, divided by (b) the
				number of poles represented in the investment amount. When an owner owns poles
				jointly with another utility, the number of poles for purposes of calculating
				the net cost of a bare pole is the number of solely owned poles plus the
				product of the number of the jointly owned poles multiplied by the owner's
				ownership percentage in those poles. In the unusual situation in which net pole
				investment is zero or negative, the owner may use gross figures with
				appropriate net adjustments.
"Occupant"
means any utility or licensee with an
				attachment to an owner's facility that the owner has granted the utility or
				licensee the right to maintain.
"Occupied space"
means that portion of the
				facility used for attachment that is rendered unusable for any other
				attachment, which is presumed to be one foot on a pole and one half of a duct
				in a duct or conduit.
"Overlashing"
means the tying of additional
				communications wires or cables to existing communications wires or cables
				attached to poles.
"Owner"
means the utility that owns or controls
				the facilities to or in which an occupant maintains, or a requester seeks to
				make, attachments.
"Pole"
means an above-ground structure on which an
				owner maintains attachments, which is presumed to be thirty-seven and one-half
				feet in height. When the owner is an electrical company as defined in
				RCW
				80.04.010, "pole" is limited to structures
				used to attach electric distribution lines.
"Requester"
means a licensee or utility that
				applies to an owner to make attachments to or in the owner's facilities and
				that has an agreement with the owner establishing the rates, terms, and
				conditions for attachments to the owner's facilities.
"Right of way"
is an owner's legal right to
				construct, install, or maintain facilities or related equipment in or on
				grounds or property belonging to another person. For purposes of this chapter,
				"right of way" includes only such legal rights that permit the owner to allow
				third parties access to those rights.
"Unusable space,"
with respect to poles, means the
				space on the pole below the usable space, including the amount required to set
				the depth of the pole. In the absence of measurements to the contrary, a pole
				is presumed to have twenty-four feet of unusable space.
"Usable space,"
with respect to poles, means the
				vertical space on a pole above the minimum grade level that can be used for the
				attachment of wires, cables, and associated equipment, and that includes space
				occupied by the owner. In the absence of measurements to the contrary, a pole
				is presumed to have thirteen and one-half feet of usable space. With respect to
				conduit, "usable space" means capacity within a conduit that is available or
				that could, with reasonable effort and expense, be made available, for the
				purpose of installing wires, cable, and associated equipment for
				telecommunications or cable services, and that includes capacity occupied by
				the owner.
"Utility"
means any electrical company or
				telecommunications company as defined in
				RCW
				80.04.010, and does not include any entity
				cooperatively organized or owned by federal, state, or local government, or a
				subdivision of state or local government.