FTFA: Existing utilities claimed it allowed new competitors to capture some of their biggest customers without meeting the same standards of operation they must meet.
It's not just "competitors are stealing all our customers" -- it's "competitors who aren't being held to the same regulatory requirements as us are stealing all our customers."
SBC leveled the exact same set of allegations in courts, in news releases, and even TV commercials against CLECs. (Who could forget the amusing ads they had where they showed two sales guys in suits looking down a flooded manhole saying "You goin' down there? I'm not goin down there!" and arguing back and forth as to who was going to do it, then talking about how they always ran the network, and do it well, etc, which glosses over the fact that THAT IS WHAT WE PAY SBC TO DO.)
Anyway, the claims are to be held in great suspicion. What they are likely complaining about is that they are the supplier of last resort. Competitors can refuse to carry customers with bad credit, can choose to tariff services to only business customers, etc. They probably also have less pricing regulation under the idea that you can always switch back to DTE if you don't like the pricing your competitive supplier issues. But DTE has never been denied a rate increase they can justify.
Any claims of lesser safety or reliability operations are amusing.
The problem with competition on the local electrical grid is that the outside competition doesn't want you or me as customer. They want the auto plants, the shopping malls, the office parks and towers, the docks, electric railroads, industrial parks, etc
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Comments 5
also: "Waa, competitors are stealing all our customers!"
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Existing utilities claimed it allowed new competitors to capture some of their biggest customers without meeting the same standards of operation they must meet.
It's not just "competitors are stealing all our customers" -- it's "competitors who aren't being held to the same regulatory requirements as us are stealing all our customers."
Reply
Anyway, the claims are to be held in great suspicion. What they are likely complaining about is that they are the supplier of last resort. Competitors can refuse to carry customers with bad credit, can choose to tariff services to only business customers, etc. They probably also have less pricing regulation under the idea that you can always switch back to DTE if you don't like the pricing your competitive supplier issues. But DTE has never been denied a rate increase they can justify.
Any claims of lesser safety or reliability operations are amusing.
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