The electrostatic model proposed by Poulos [Phys. Plasmas 26, 022104 (2019)] to describe the electric potential distribution across and along a magnetized plasma column is used to shed light on the ability to control perpendicular electric fields. The effective electrical connection between facing end-electrodes is shown to be conditioned upon the smallness of a dimensionless parameter tau function of the plasma column aspect ratio and the square root of the conductivity ratio sigma perpendicular to/sigma parallel to. The analysis of a selected set of past end-electrode biasing experiments confirms that this parameter is small in experiments that have successfully demonstrated perpendicular electric field tailoring. On the other hand, this parameter is O(1) in experiments that failed to demonstrate control, pointing to an excessively large ion-neutral collision frequency. A better understanding of the various contributions to sigma perpendicular to is needed to gain further insights into end-biasing experimental results. Published under license by AIP Publishing.
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