Decision on Forced Telecom Access Overturned

NEEDHAM, MA-In a ruling that is being celebrated as a victory for property owners, Judge Mitchell J. Sikora of the Supreme Judicial Court invalidated the Department of Telecommunications and Energy’s forced telecom access regulations, finding that they constitute an unlawful taking of private property.

“It’s finally over,” says David Begelfer, CEO of Massachusetts’s branch of the National Association of Office and Industrial Properties. NAIOP, along with the Greater Boston Real Estate Board and the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, challenged the DTE’s rule that dictated the terms by which property owners were required to accommodate telecom carriers seeking access to their buildings. The DTE’s rule gave any competitive telecom service provider the authority to enter every privately owned, multi-tenanted building in the state to install their own wiring and equipment for little or no cost.

NAIOP, the GBREB and MAR challenged the rule almost immediately after it came out a year ago, putting a halt to any changes pending this appeal. “Nothing will change now,” notes Begelfer. “What won’t happen is that every building will be open to any telecom company to come into any building without cost to the telecom company. It was giving away property rights.”