General Counsel, Digital Infrastructure Attorney and Advisor, Chair of the TAG Infrastructure Society
Throwback Thursday photo to a great virtual panel with Drew Clark of Breakfast Media LLC (and Caroline Boothe Olsen and Gary Wood) about broadband deployment and railroad crossings. I represent the broadband "side" of this dispute but am somewhat unique in that I have often represented the utility side of shared infrastructure and still do, so my perspective sometimes ends up closer to the middle of the road on shared access. Sharing critical infrastructure is a balancing act. Few if any stakeholders want to see truly egregious practices happen. At the same time, I have seen fights over these issues get bigger than they have to be when the owner side's issues aren't heard. That problem can happen several ways. One, the owner side accurately and fairly presents the issues but nobody listens. I have definitely seen that happen. Two, the owner side does not participate, or does not do the best job advocating for itself and its industry. In the #infrastructure world we are seeing more collaboration than I have ever seen in my career. I am hopeful we will see the same thing happen in shared infrastructure. As an example, I was surprised to see the level of agreement in the recent #FCC pole replacement proceeding. Clearly things have developed from the WW3 level battles in that area that was just starting to wind down when I started practice. #broadband #telecommunications #utility #utilities #railroads #deployment #throwbackthursday
