Organisations (private or public) that own and/or maintain networks should be separate from the retail end. I think this would achieve benefits for knowing where money is flowing and allow for efficiencies currently not available.
Efficiencies in retail. Utility retail functions are basically (I'm probably overly simplifying here) to collect money from users which may involving measuring usage and probably maintain some of the last mile connection / meter connection. Measuring involves reading meters for water, power and gas; and counting connections / packets for telephony and data. So a retail company could undertake billing and meter reading for all the services with meters in the front yard for a geographical area. And depending on the deals retail companies could achieve with the different utility companies competing retail companies could be achieved which serve the market in more efficient ways.
I have a micro and macro example for interesting ways retail companies could be established to service a community. Micro example: new meters that phone home (or send data over the net) could be a selling point, even at a higher price point, so that meters don't have to be readily available from the street. Macro example: a community with a social bent may have a co-operative that purchases gas, water and power from the network companies and maintains the last mile connections. Fees for the utilities can be collected through the local taxes / rates. Depending on how trusting of your neighbour one is in that community there would only need to be one meter for each service entering the community, saving the cost of meter reading.
This is getting to be long post... next up will be my thoughts on network companies: what they should look like and how that is better then what we have now.
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