Mountain State residents who have — for years now — been waiting for the fulfillment of promises that high-speed broadband access would be brought to all of us were likely not surprised to learn there is another obstacle to overcome.

“It’s still very complex, but if all the parties have a commitment to trying to solve the problem, then it can get solved,” said Mark Polen with the Cable Telecommunication Association of West Virginia last week.

He was referring to overcoming the hurdle of actually attaching the new fiber lines to poles owned by other utilities. Believe it or not (and, in West Virginia, it’s easy to believe) the FIRST meeting of a task force formed by the West Virginia Public Service Commission to facilitate discussions between internet service providers and owners of utility poles was held just last month.

We have the money. All those providers have turned in their applications. For goodness sake, even the West Virginia Legislature has since 2017 been passing bills to spell out the process for “make-ready pole access.”

But the cooperation required to start the real work hasn’t been planned.

“Mon Power and Potomac Edison support the expansion of broadband services in West Virginia,” said FirstEnergy spokesperson Will Boye. “At the same time, we are responsible for delivering safe and reliable electric service and must ensure that any new pole attachments do not adversely impact the safety of our line workers, communication line workers and the public. We strive to keep electricity costs manageable for our customers, and we must also ensure they are not financially impacted by the costs of new pole attachments, per PSC rules.”

According to Polen, even before the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, “there are literally tens of thousands of pole attachment issues at stake throughout the industry in this state. … They have a tremendous backlog.”

Why on earth was this part of the process not discussed at the earliest stages, when promises first began flying about making quality, high-speed broadband internet accessible to all West Virginians?

Never mind that the prospect of large sums of money flooding in for a project that will have a hard time getting off the ground until backlogs are addressed bears the strong whiff of our Roads to Prosperity challenges. How many more years must our students, schools, businesses and families wait to have access to what is considered a necessary utility in much of the rest of the country?

Perhaps Polen is right. Perhaps all parties will work together quickly to resolve their concerns and get the ball rolling. Truly, they must. The Mountain State cannot afford to wait.