AT&T Accuses Dish of Stealing Its PG&E Meter to Power Its Own Tower

Dish Wireless removed to U.S. District Court for Eastern California in Sacramento Monday a Dec. 22 complaint filed in Butte County Superior Court in which AT&T alleges Dish wrongfully disconnected the power at AT&T’s cell tower at a facility in Chico, California, and has been using AT&T's electrical meter to power its own tower on the same site.

AT&T has leased space for the tower at the facility, which is operated by American Tower, since January 2006, and has maintained a Pacific Gas & Electric meter there since December 2018, said the complaint (docket 2:24-at-00079). Dish has failed to restore AT&T to the use of its meter or repay AT&T for the power it used and was charged to AT&T's PG&E account, it said.

AT&T has incurred, and continues to incur, costs associated with not only Dish’s wrongful use of AT&T's meter for the Dish tower but also AT&T's subsequent actions to ensure the AT&T tower “remains operable,” said the complaint. The company further seeks to recover the meter that Dish has wrongfully converted and enjoin Dish from further use of AT&T's meter at the facility, it said.

Nothing in Dish’s notice of removal “shall be interpreted as a waiver or relinquishment” of Dish’s right “to assert any defense,” said that notice. Dish reserves the right “to assert all applicable claims and defenses” in response to AT&T’s complaint, it said.

Though AT&T notified Dish that it was wrongfully using AT&T's meter, Dish has refused to stop using it or return it to AT&T, said the complaint. Dish has wrongfully used the meter and the power that PG&E delivers through it, at AT&T's “direct expense,” it said. AT&T believes that obtaining new meters from PG&E “may take many months as a result of supply chain issues,” it said. AT&T believes that Dish is “deliberately refusing to disconnect its facilities” from the meter and return it to AT&T's sole use, it said.

Dish’s motive is to “seize for itself” access to power at the Chico facility while depriving AT&T “of efficient use of that facility,” said the complaint. As a result, AT&T has been compelled to both pay PG&E's bills for power consumed by Dish for the Dish tower and incur the cost of a generator to provide power to its own system on the AT&T tower, it said.

AT&T's damages from Dish’s “improper behavior” are “substantial,” said the complaint. AT&T is being forced to pay PG&E for power that AT&T isn’t consuming, plus the cost of the backup generator, it said. AT&T also is incurring “consequential damages” in the form of additional time of its personnel, plus impairment of its wireless network in the area, it said.