California electric company fiber leasing gets a reprieve

11 July 2018 by Steve Blum
, , ,

The California Public Utilities Commission won’t kill electric companies’ independent fiber enterprises just yet. The dispute over how to share the money that Southern California Edison earns from leasing out surplus fiber with its electric customers was bumped to next month. The changes in the latest version proposed by commissioner Clifford Rechtschaffen – including making it a 50/50 split of gross revenue instead of the 10% that goes to ratepayers under current rules – were significant enough to trigger a 30 day review period. That also gives the CPUC time to think about how to handle SCE’s request to cancel its original request for a ruling, because the contract that triggered it – a master fiber lease agreement with Verizon – is off the table.