content: Furthermore "service providers" should not be granted exclusive rights to selling their "service" in a geographical area. Why do you only see this with service providers and municipalities? It's not like you have "Joe blows plumbing" having exclusive rights to fix all the plumbing in all the houses in a certain county  I think the originally done way back (think early 1900's) because multiple utilities providers were running multiple cables everywhere, and infrastructure was becoming difficult to deal with, particularly in urban areas. I remember seeing pictures of Manhattan that look like the place was overgrown with wires. This was also back when nothing was standardized, IIRC, so it's not like two lines for the same utility would have been interchangeable either. My inner engineer definitely appreciates the fact that having one set of wires running through an area is efficient, but I also know that, like you're saying, people will just find a way to abuse the system.