D.C. Memo: Big Sky Utility Slams Ziply Fiber over Pole Work

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Merger: A gas and utility company in Big Sky country had some negative points to share about Ziply Fiber, which needs FCC approval to be acquired by Bell Canada for $5 billion in a deal announced last November. “During the summer of 2024, NorthWestern was forced to take the extreme measure of seeking a temporary restraining order to focus Ziply on safe construction practice,” said Shannon M. Heim, NorthWestern Energy Group’s General Counsel and Vice President of Federal Government Affairs and FERC Compliance Officer in a Feb. 28 filing with the FCC. NorthWestern, based in Sioux Falls, S.C., is a natural gas and electric utility with 1,600 employees and serves more than 775,000 customers in Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska. “We began working with Ziply Fiber in 2022. It has been a strained relationship,” Heim said in her filing. “NorthWestern adamantly believes that Ziply and its proposed new owner must change and improve its business approach.” As part of the filing, Heim included language from a 2024 request for an injunction against Ziply. “In May of 2024, NorthWestern learned that Ziply Pacific, either directly or through Ziply Montana or Ziply Wireless, began attaching infrastructure to NorthWestern’s poles without waiting for the make-ready work to be approved and completed. NorthWestern learned from Rocky Mountain Contractors that, when they arrived to do approved make-ready work, they discovered Ziply had already attached its line to the poles,” the court filing said. NorthWestern is not asking the FCC to kill the deal. (Continued after paywall.)