Municipal Rights of Way

Dealing with Telecom Companies: Protecting Municipal Rights-of-Way

Over the last decade, individual municipalities across the country, large and small, along with FCM have been investing time, energy and resources to safeguard legitimate municipal interests in the midst of this new environment. At FCM, the Technical Committee on Telecommunications and Rights-of-Way has been spearheading national efforts, promoting information-sharing, assisting individual members in their legal battles against telecommunications corporations and attempting to raise the political and public profile of this issue.

After 10 years of discussions, litigation and negotiations, some best practices and guiding principles are emerging. While there are still a number of areas where FCM will continue to play an active role to defend the interests of its members, enough experience has been gained to make it worthwhile to compile the relevant information in order to enable municipalities to systematically protect some of their most basic rights.

The purpose of this handbook is therefore to provide all FCM members with the best information currently available, as well as suggest concrete steps which can be taken to ensure that increased activity in the telecommunications sector does not translate into added costs to municipalities and their taxpayers.

The handbook provides:

Information on the current environment;
An overview of the leading legal cases and their effects;
Practical advice on how to best protect municipal interests and maximize cost-recovery; and
A summary of issues of interest to members which are still outstanding.