That didn’t take long.
Four days after informing the California Public Utilities Commission that it couldn’t reach agreement with a grab bag of protesting organisations, Pacific Gas and Electric threw in the towel. It’s ending its plan to become a competitive telecommunications company. It won’t put its extensive inventory of surplus dark fiber, and potentially other services, on the open market.
In its request to withdraw its application for certification as a competitive telecoms company, PG&E said the world has changed since it began the process more than a year ago…
Given PG&E’s present circumstances, it is in the public interest that PG&E make current informed decisions in light of the new environment before investing significant resources in launching the new [competitive telecoms] business. PG&E and parties have diligently engaged in settlement negotiations to expeditiously make progress towards full resolution of the issues in this proceeding. However, as more time passes, the uncertainties of PG&E’s current circumstances outweigh the potential economic and busines benefit of the proposed [competitive telecoms] business. Therefore, the public interest is protected by allowing PG&E to exercise its prudent business decision-making to not continue to pursue the [competitive telecoms] business, at this time, given the significant change in circumstances since the filing of the…Application in April of 2017.
PG&E didn’t say exactly which circumstances had changed, but top of the list has to be the estimated $12 billion in damages it might have to pay out as a result of last year’s wildfires. When a company faces an existential financial threat, it’s time to scrap diversification plans and focus on the core business.
But that’s not the only circumstance that’s changed. The CPUC seems to be intent on killing the competitive dark fiber business in California. Last year’s decision to wave through CenturyLink’s purchase of Level 3 Communications took the last major source of independent dark fiber in California off the market, and its savaging of Southern California Edison’s plan to do a bulk dark fiber deal with Verizon sent a clear message that electric companies that want to compete in the telecoms space need not apply.
When California’s utility regulator lines up – wittingly or not – on the same side as big, monopoly model telecoms companies like AT&T, Comcast and Charter Communications, it’s game over. Retreat was PG&E’s only option.