The ability to focus on the customer is the hallmark of every successful organization.

That includes anticipating customer needs and meeting those needs in a way that is simple for the customer. This helps to explain why Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division is committed to smart meters.

Smart meters provide options and opportunities our customers want -- as expressed by 3,000 residential customer survey respondents. They want the ability to better manage their utility bills with access to more information, to leave their gate locked, to select their own bill due dates, to pay as much as they want when they want for service -- and more.

Yet, a group seeks to deny these requests to the majority of our customers.

Still, MLGW’s approach to smart meters accommodates this small group too; it’s called choice.

You can choose not to have a smart meter if you don’t want one. You can choose not to have time-of-use (TOU) rates if you don’t want them.

Customers have the right to have a smart meter and time-of-use rates just as much as others have a right not to have either one.

MLGW's vision is “to be the best utility for our customers,” and one of the MLGW's values is “to always do what is in the best interest of the customers as a whole.”

Smart meters have been demonstrated to be in the best interest of the customer as a whole and are one of the solutions that will allow MLGW “to be the best utility for our customers.”