Pole Attachments Decoded: A Guide to NESC Compliance

Article courtesy of Rob Hall, Technical Representative at Gresco, and member of the NRECA TDEC Distribution Subcommittee, Overhead Work Group

Struggling with the National Electric Safety Code (NESC) and how it applies to pole attachments?
Do you have communication lines attached to your poles or running near your underground electric cables? Have telecom companies asked to install 5G antennas on your poles, possibly even above the primary lines? Are you confident there's proper separation between transformer tanks and communication lines? Or are you planning to install your own fiber optic lines on your distribution poles?

Good news—help has arrived.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s (NRECA) Transmission and Distribution Engineering Committee (TDEC) has published a user-friendly guide:
Guide for Application of Clearance Requirements on Joint Use Poles, available on cooperative.com. This guide focuses on clearance requirements—not pole attachment agreements or rental fees—and is designed to help pole owners understand and apply the NESC more confidently.

You can share this guide with communication companies that attach (or want to attach) to your poles. It helps them understand the required clearances and why they matter. It’s also a great internal resource for field personnel; if they see something questionable, they can quickly reference the guide to determine if there’s a code violation.

What’s covered?

Communication lines and their placement
Antennas in the communication space, supply space, and even above primary lines
Surprising facts—like the NESC allowing just 13 inches of clearance between a 14.4kV line and an antenna mounted above it
Your authority—as the pole owner, you can require greater clearances than the code minimums

Safety matters.
NESC 410A6 requires employers to train employees working near antennas to recognize and mitigate RF exposure. Have you been trained? The guide references relevant FCC bulletins and OSHA rules. It also encourages proactive discussions with antenna owners about RF exposure mitigation—both during routine maintenance and extreme weather events.

Underground installations?
The guide also addresses underground power and communication lines:

Can fiber optic lines share a U-guard with a primary riser?
What are the separation requirements in a joint trench?
Is conduit to a pad-mounted transformer considered a “conduit system” under the NESC?

Find answers starting on page 46.