princess phone<\/a> and some services, like call forwarding and call waiting. In fact, the Bells had argued to regulators for a long time that it would compromise the reliability of the system to allow others to connect.<\/p>\n[Tweet “What the US Electricity Sector Can Learn from the Telecom Revolution”]<\/p>\n
The opening of the market coincided with dramatic technological advancementss in communications, wireless, and internet. The Bell companies were extremely resistant to new market entrants and played regulatory games with everything from interconnection to customer service. State commissions were flooded with complaints of anti-competitive behavior, and the Bells used the regulatory process to block competition and customer access. While those wars waged, customers migrated from the telephone company to mobile wireless and the internet.<\/p>\n
The once dominant Bell System is gone, and the existing wireline network struggles as it continues to lose market share. In contrast, the new networks, mobile and broadband, have thrived as they offer customers choice and evolving new services. We know that wireline phones were simply supplanted by seemingly superior, more desirable technologies. What we don\u2019t know is how much the Bells\u2019 emphasis on fighting change in regulatory battles, rather than putting resources into innovating within their networks and working with new entrants, contributed to their demise.<\/p>\n
A new era\u00a0<\/strong>The American telecommunications story of grid defection and bypass can enlighten today\u2019s utilities.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/p>\n
The accelerating transition of the electricity system has been compared to the journey taken in the telecommunications industry. While the experience is not completely analogous, there are lessons to be learned. For example, customers flocked to wireless cell phones that offered them new services and mobility. The internet, designed to allow innovation at the edges, made it easy for innovators to interconnect their applications to the internet and reach customers. The more people that connect and use the networks, the more valuable the service. These technologies converged, giving customers the ubiquitous communications and internet devices we carry today, and increasingly more people have cut the cord to the telephone company.<\/p>\n
Broadband internet, along with wireless technology, have transformed how we think about communications. The tale of the powerful Bell operating companies, in light of these new alternative networks, deserves study. Some thought alternative platforms couldn\u2019t be developed to compete with the telephone company, and were proven wrong.<\/p>\n
The American telecommunications story of grid defection and bypass can enlighten today\u2019s utility system operators and regulators as they stand at the crossroads of choosing between using regulatory processes to cling to the past, or innovating in tandem with new technologies and new companies to deliver value to customers. In addition to delivering new value and markets, the new ways are cheaper and cleaner, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Utilities and regulators are not typically known for innovation. Instead, they tend to focus their efforts and attention on reliability and cost effectiveness. So, when Rob Powelson, new president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) kicked off his first national meeting under the theme \u201cInfrastructure, Innovation and Investment,\u201d I was intrigued. The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39942,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84830,27600],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grid-modernization","category-utilities"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
What the US Electricity Sector Can Learn from the Telecom Revolution - Energy Exchange<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/energyexchange\/2017\/02\/28\/what-the-us-electricity-sector-can-learn-from-the-telecom-revolution\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What the US Electricity Sector Can Learn from the Telecom Revolution - Energy Exchange\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Utilities and regulators are not typically known for innovation. Instead, they tend to focus their efforts and attention on reliability and cost effectiveness. 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<\/p>\n