it seem that the British way, to separate the infrastructure from the suppliers, with national rail, and somewhat like BT openreach, and Arqiva (TV and Radio infrastructure),(reply>), In a lot of cases, the infrastructure was built by the government and is now run by a private company on their behalf, and then private retail companies buy it off them and sell it on to consumers, providing all the customer service side of things.<br><br>For example, you might pay TalkTalk for your landline telephone, and Tiscali for your internet, but the infrastructure they're using is owned by British Telecom. TalkTalk/Tiscali pay BT for the ability to use the infrastructure, and then bill you for that and for the customer service they provide. If anything goes wrong, they pay BT to go and fix it (BT do have their own retail arm, but it's operated as a separate company).<br><br>Same with electricity. It's generated by a Distribution Network Operator and sent along infrastructure owned and maintained by one of several DNOs connected to the national grid who are licensed by the government to take care of it. The electricity suppliers (separate commercial companies) then buy electricity from the DNOs and sell it homeowners and businesses, billing them for the electricty and customer service. If there's a problem with any of the infrastructure, the DNO (not the supplier) is called in to fix it.<br><br>The idea is that it creates competition and drives prices down. The suppliers can't charge too much, or customers would simply buy it from someone else.<br><br>The exception currently is the water industry, which was sold to private companies in the early 90s and is currently owned and supplied by the same companies (mostly, there are some supply-only companies already). For example, South West Water own all the pipework in the South West area, and also maintain and retail it too.,(reply>), +Shawn Lindsay The water industry got away with it for ages, but in 2017 that'll be separated too (for commercial customers, 2020 or so for domestic customers).