Here in Manitoba, MTS Allstream has gotten away from the climbing pegs. They don't put any on replacement poles and the old poles that had them don't anymore.
I am not sure if that's to keep unauthorized people from climbing the poles and getting hurt or a cost saving measure.
All the line-persons here have either a bucket truck if they are outside plant service or extension ladders if they are instillation / repair, so they do not need to climb the pole. I don't even know if they teach pole climbing anymore to the new staff.
One thing they are slow on is transferring over their cables to new poles if they are on a joint use pole with the hydro utility.
It's not unusual to see an old hydro pole cut off just above the telephone lines and be like that for months until the attachment hardware gets moved over to the adjacent new pole.
