4. Discussion
No protests have been filed in response to the application. As SCE states, approval will afford a benefit to ratepayers with no associated risk. In particular, the project will enhance the efficient utilization of utility assets without damaging the environment.
This is the latest in a series of applications by SCE seeking Commission approval to lease temporarily-available underground conduit space, aboveground cable space, optical fiber or a combination of each. For example, in D.93-04-019 and D.94-06-017, the Commission approved agreements that involved the leasing of SCE-owned underground cable and conduit space to competitive access providers. Similarly, in D.95-05-039, the Commission approved a lease of SCE-owned aboveground cable space on poles, facilities, and rights-of-way. The Commission further authorized the lease of optical fibers, underground conduit, and overhead cable space in D.96-11-058.
In evaluating the leasing arrangement between SCE and Metropolitan Fiber Systems of California, Inc., in D.93-04-019, we stated:
[T]he agreement makes productive use of what is currently vacant conduit space. It makes eminent good sense for California's energy utilities, with their extensive easements, rights of way, and underground conduits, to cooperate in this manner with the telecommunications utilities who are seeking to build the fiber optic network. Joint use of the utility facilities has obvious economic and environmental benefits. The public interest is served when utility property is used for other productive purposes without interfering with the utility's operation or affecting service to utility customers.9
Consequently, Commission policy favors arrangements of the type proposed in the current application, which not only do not interfere with service to ratepayers, but benefit them.
In D.99-09-070, we adopted a settlement between SCE and the Commission's Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA) concerning SCE's application for a mechanism for sharing revenues resulting from non-tariffed products and services between shareholders and ratepayers. In that settlement, SCE and DRA agreed to classify all existing non-tariffed products and services as either active or passive. The agreement between SCE and DRA is memorialized in an attachment to the settlement agreement which was adopted by the Commission. The leasing of unused (or dark) fiber on SCE's fiber optic system was an existing non-tariffed product or service at the time, and the settlement provided that dark fiber on fiber optic system would be classified as "active." (D.99-09-070, Settlement Agreement at A-2.)
SCE's lease with L.A. County is also a lease of dark fiber on SCE's fiber optic system. SCE's participation in the lease is therefore classified as active, and the Agreement provides that revenue from the lease will be shared between shareholders and ratepayers using a 90/10 split pursuant to the revenue sharing mechanism adopted in D.99-09-070. This arrangement is also expected to enable L.A. County to provide better service to its telecommunications customers by facilitating the expansion of its network. We will approve the leasing arrangement set forth in the Agreement and grant the application, subject to the terms and conditions to protect SCE's ratepayers and the environment, detailed in the ordering paragraphs of this decision.
9 48 CPUC2d 602 at 603.
