Can this work or not?

[deuxmill]

This question is regarding pseudo monopolies like watter distribution , electricity distribution , gas , etc.

I had a huge argument with two of my uncles and one of my cousins regarding distribution , and i stated that if the distribution company was public meaning it would provide the network for "free"  to anyone who can offer the product , for example watter , at the same quality , ultimately making it the same watter , then this would enable huge competition and consequently the lowest prices for the consumers. And they argued that this can't work because you can't make the difference between the watter you consume. But then again i stated that the watter is the same watter only the price is different at all providers and so you don't need to make the difference because there isn't any , just the price. But they said that because the price is different they are different products and so it can't work.

So in my view thing would work like this:

The distribution company creates the network and provides the initial watter too fill the network and then the providers can contract with whomever wants to consume their product and need to fill the network with the corresponding quantity of watter someone that has a contract with them has consumed. If no contract you provide no watter. There would be two meters one at the provider and one at the consumer .

Pleas tell me what you think and why you think it  

Thank you

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[322i0n]

If I understand the question correctly, we have this in the UK with all our utilities (gas, electric, water, phone, broadband etc) all distributed across the same network infrastructure by different competing companies.

there does not need to be a meter at the supply end just a meter at usage end and to kno who was charging for the supply.

[deuxmill]

If I understand the question correctly, we have this in the UK with all our utilities (gas, electric, water, phone, broadband etc) all distributed across the same network infrastructure by different competing companies.

there does not need to be a meter at the supply end just a meter at usage end and to kno who was charging for the supply.

Could you please provide some links so that i can hit their head against the computer screens . I knew that in the UK there was something like this but i couldn't find something fast:(

I included the provider metter as a mean to control that he actually provided the watter .

thank you

[hugolp]

I will assume that when you say "public" in reality you mean government controlled and not public.

The problem is that you dont have competition at the producer level and thus there is no incentive to provide water of good quality or at good price.

[Hawker]

As 322i0n said, we have that in the UK for water, gas, telecoms and electricity.  The competition has to be regulated (to protect vulnerable customers) but there is no question that its there and that its a good idea.

[322i0n]

example gas and electric are provided by Scotishpower, britishgas, eon, npower, edfenergy (these are just the big players there are many smaller companies doing exactly the same and sometimes cheaper). they all provide the same product through the same infrastucture but compete on price. too lazy to look for websites but moneysupermarket.com provides comparisons of utility suppliers and thier pricing with links to websites.

[deuxmill]

I will assume that when you say "public" in reality you mean government controlled and not public.

The problem is that you dont have competition at the producer level and thus there is no incentive to provide water of good quality or at good price.

I'm talking about the distribution company. I don't care if it's controlled by Satan as long as every provider is free to plug in and every provider contributes accordingly to its debit  to the repairs and the company doesn't make a profit. Now if this means government control or not i'm not sure .

[hugolp]

I'm talking about the distribution company. I don't care if it's controlled by Satan as long as every provider is free to plug in and every provider contributes accordingly to its debit  to the repairs and the company doesn't make a profit. Now if this means government control or not i'm not sure .

Thats an interesting twist. How do you control who connects to where and who pays what? F.e. a pipe is providing water to company A that provides water to 3 towns, but company B decides to connect to a earlier point of that pipe, leaving company A without enough water to provide the needs of those 3 towns. Who decides if company B can connect or not? Who decides if more investment is needed, and if thats the case how is it payed?

Following your idea you could argue that in a free market a cooperative of water distributors would be more eficient that companies alone because they could share the infrastructure more efficiently.

[onesalt]

If I understand the question correctly, we have this in the UK with all our utilities (gas, electric, water, phone, broadband etc) all distributed across the same network infrastructure by different competing companies.

there does not need to be a meter at the supply end just a meter at usage end and to kno who was charging for the supply.

Yes and all it did was make it more expensive. Natural Monopolies are just that, Natural monopolies. Trying to make them some free market playground doesn't fucking work.