But a country with an information-based economy cannot afford unreliable supplies of electricity.

Water, electricity, heating oil, schools, police officers - all are still in short or unreliable supply seven months after Israel left.

The problem, though, is an unreliable supply.

Still, for all the resources Castro provides, the system founders from an unreliable supply of materials.

Natural gas companies play up the fact that most of the fuel comes from North America, contrasting that with the foreign - and supposedly more unreliable - supplies of their competitors.

There was also little public infrastructure, not enough food and unreliable supplies of water, electricity and phone service.

Though designed both to save foreign exchange and for social welfare reasons, this policy had later to be modified as problems of quality and unreliable supply multiplied.

Along with cheap land come poor roads, a scarcity of knowledgeable employees and unreliable supplies of power and water.

Customers were dissatisfied with fluctuating boat prices due to unpredictable exchange rates, an unreliable supply of spare parts, and uncertain delivery dates.

In California, those forces have fed a new kind of power failure: rolling blackouts, huge losses for utilities and businesses hobbled by an unreliable electric supply.