Developments in technology have eroded some of the natural monopoly aspects of traditional public utilities.

In the British Isles the state, private firms and charities ran the traditional public utilities.

Unlike traditional utilities, which are regulated monopolies with a limited service area, independent power producers can build plants and sell electricity anywhere.

Unlike traditional utilities, the Authority does not have a service territory.

In addition, traditional utilities continue to invest in transmission infrastructure - another benefit that competitive markets promised yet have failed to produce.

The reason traditional utilities are able to provide lower-priced power is twofold.

The subsidies are actually paid by the traditional utilities, which agreed to dip into their reserves to help entice people into the pilot program.

Indeed, the survey found that in regions where few states have deregulated, most regulators believed that consumers were better served by traditional, regulated utilities.

When the uncertainty is well-characterized then traditional expected utility (predict-then-act) analyses are often most appropriate.

The new competitors would have to be more efficient than traditional utilities because they could not count on recovering costs from ratepayers.