The internal business case for modernizing joint use management, including the ROI math, the strategic framing, and the talking points you need for budget approval.
Your utility is investing in digital transformation. AI-powered asset management. Grid digital twins. Machine learning models that predict equipment failures before they happen.
Meanwhile, your joint use department is processing attachment applications with spreadsheets, email chains, and filing cabinets.
This is not just an operational inefficiency. It's a strategic blind spot that affects grid hardening decisions, rate case defensibility, and your utility's ability to leverage AI for anything infrastructure-related.
And here's what makes it worse: every attachment application that comes through your door contains valuable field data. Photos, measurements, pole conditions, GPS coordinates. Real intelligence about your distribution infrastructure, collected by attachers who are already at your poles.
That data gets reviewed for the permitting decision. Then it disappears.
At 500 applications per year, averaging 25 poles each, you're looking at field data on 12,500 poles annually. At $45 per pole (the market rate for independent field audits), that's over $560,000 in data asset value walking out the door every year.
We call this the crowdsourced audit. Attachers fund the field work. You capture the data. Everyone wins.
Everything you need to build the internal case for joint use modernization.
Joint use modernization delivers value across three dimensions: operational efficiency (the "defense"), strategic data acquisition (the "offense"), and regulatory risk mitigation. The guide breaks down each with specific calculations.
The formulas and benchmarks you need to build a defensible business case. Efficiency savings, data asset value, backlog exposure, and BEAD surge projections. Numbers your finance committee will understand.
Different stakeholders need different framing. The guide provides specific talking points for finance committees, executive leadership, and distribution planning teams. Including how to address common objections.
With application volumes projected to increase 300-400% during peak BEAD deployment, the window to turn volume into value is finite. The guide covers what this means for capacity planning and data capture strategy.
BEAD funding is time-limited. The surge will ramp up, peak, and subside. Utilities that modernize before the surge capture both the operational capacity and the strategic data.
Utilities that wait will survive, probably, but they'll spend the entire window in fire drill mode. No strategic data capture. No process improvement. Just keeping heads above water while competitors build comprehensive asset databases funded by the same attachment activity.
"The window to turn volume into value is finite."
You already know joint use modernization makes sense. The challenge is getting everyone else on board. This guide gives you the framework, the math, and the exact language to turn "we should look into this" into "let's move forward."
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