Most plans to deregulate the electric power industry employ a concept called "open access." While consumers would be able to buy power from competing generating companies, transmission and distribution of power would continue to be regulated as "natural monopolies."

Free market advocates argue that local utilities should not be forced to perform delivery service for their rivals against their will or below cost. Rather, Congress should end the protected monopolies of power transmitters and distributors and allow newcomers either to cut deals with incumbents to deliver their power or set up their own competing wires.

Those who advocate this approach explain how it would work:

• Absent exclusive franchises, any independent power producer could team up with real estate developers to extend low-voltage power lines to residential developments, office parks and manufacturing plants.

• They could make right-of-way deals with private landowners or install wires along rights of way owned by gas, telecommunications, Internet and railroad companies.

• They could share costs with firms hoping to install wires for voice and data services.

• Reasonable access to highway rights of way could be auctioned to power producers.

In answer to those who contend such a setup would be too vast and complicated, free market supporters cite such gargantuan projects as the 17,000 mile Fiberoptic Link Around the Globe connecting London to Japan -- possibly the longest engineering project in the world. Indeed, 25 million miles of fiberoptic cable will be deployed worldwide by 2001 -- enough to circle the equator 4,900 times. Such projects are vastly more ambitious and complex than the mere installation of a power line, say advocates of competition.