The electric utility pole has become one of the most heavily litigated infrastructure assets in Brazil. Two essential public services coexist on the same structure: electricity distribution and telecommunications networks. What should represent operational efficiency has instead become a recurring source of legal uncertainty.
Today, an electricity distributor may be held liable for irregular cables that it neither installed, uses, nor is authorized to remove independently. At the same time, when charging for the use of its own infrastructure, the amount owed often depends more on the jurisdiction where the dispute is litigated than on any technical criterion. The core argument is straightforward: the problem is not a lack of regulation, but rather the existence of multiple decision-making authorities applying different premises to the same conflict.
The infrastructure-sharing model has given rise to two disputes that appear contradictory but are, in reality, two sides of the same regulatory vacuum. The first question is: How much should be paid? Internet service providers and telecommunications companies routinely seek judicial relief to reduce pole attachment fees and recover amounts they believe were overpaid.
The second question is: Who bears responsibility? Municipal governments and public prosecutors, through public civil actions, demand the removal of loose, broken, and unauthorized cables that threaten public safety and urban aesthetics. Opposing claimants, opposing requests, yet invariably the same defendant.
The source of this divergence lies in the evolution of Brazil’s regulatory framework itself. Over nearly three decades, statutes, regulations, and executive decrees have addressed isolated aspects of the issue without conclusively answering three fundamental questions: who manages utility poles, who pays for their use, and who bears responsibility for unauthorized occupancy.
The Brazilian General Telecommunications Law guaranteed telecommunications providers access under “fair and reasonable prices” but failed to define how fairness should be calculated. A joint regulatory resolution issued in 2014 established a reference price, frozen at the time of publication and applicable only to dispute resolution. In 2022, ANEEL effectively returned the issue to the market by endorsing freely negotiated pricing. This was followed by the 2023 National Policy and the 2024 federal decree that introduced the figure of the “pole infrastructure manager” (“posteiro”), a legal entity responsible for the commercial exploitation of pole attachment spaces.
In December 2025, ANEEL approved a proposed new joint resolution creating the infrastructure operator model, identifying priority poles (representing between one-fifth and one-third of the national inventory), requiring annual compliance and regularization plans from electricity distributors, and assigning telecommunications operators both the costs of cleanup operations and the obligation to identify their cables, subject to removal in cases of noncompliance. Pricing would be based on cost-oriented principles.
However, one critical disagreement remained between ANEEL’s text and ANATEL’s proposal, precisely the issue that could not remain unresolved. Under ANEEL’s interpretation, transferring the commercial exploitation of poles to the infrastructure manager would be optional for distributors. Under ANATEL’s interpretation, it would be mandatory.
The deadlock was ultimately resolved above the regulatory agencies themselves. In May 2026, Brazil’s Office of the Attorney General (AGU) concluded the debate through a binding legal opinion, determining that the expression “shall transfer” constitutes a mandatory obligation, leaving no room for discretion. ANEEL will therefore be required to revise its approved framework. Meanwhile, Congress entered the debate through the so-called “Utility Pole Bill,” whose urgency motion was approved in the Chamber of Deputies and which may fundamentally reshape the regulatory assumptions underlying the entire sector.
When all these elements are viewed together, the system reveals itself in full: a Judiciary that preserves contractual arrangements in pricing disputes while expanding the liability of infrastructure owners; an Attorney General’s Office redefining governance models through binding legal opinions; two regulatory agencies operating without a unified regulatory text; and a Congress capable of changing the rules of the game altogether.
In this environment, judicial decisions cease merely to apply existing rules and instead become rule-making instruments on a case-by-case basis. Ultimately, consumers bear the cost twice: through electricity tariffs and internet service charges.
Utility pole sharing is no longer merely a regulatory issue; it has become an institutional challenge. A stable pricing framework, an objective allocation of responsibilities, and a uniform regime governing infrastructure occupancy are no longer matters of technical debate alone. They have become prerequisites for legal certainty. The issue is not about choosing between electricity distributors and telecommunications operators. Rather, it is about recognizing that no one invests, regularizes, or efficiently manages infrastructure when the governing rules change depending on the authority before which the dispute is brought.
Autor: Walberto L. Oliveira Filho • email: walberto.filho@ernestoborges.com.br
