ABSTRACT
If air and maritime transport are the most global network industries, water, perhaps along with urban public transport, is certainly the most local one. It is also the least liberalized one, at least when it comes to access competition, as it has proven to be technically impossible. Except for some countries – for example, France and the United Kingdom – water is firmly in public hands, even though things have started to change as of late thanks to the spreading of the French model (public-private partnerships or PPPs). Typically, drinking and wastewater services are provided by local public water utilities, which come in different forms: separately, one drinking and one wastewater utility; integrated; or as part of a larger urban utility that includes electricity, gas, waste management, cable TV, and others.
