Physically, they would receive power through the local company's distribution system, as now.

ECONOMIST: Electricity

They were designed to try to ensure the minutiae of local representation was not lost as power shifted towards the centre and survived the overhaul which created the current system of local government in 1996.

BBC: 'Sense of community' is crucial

Building on dry land is difficult too: suitable sites are rare, and Britain's planning system hands obstreperous local residents a lot of power.

ECONOMIST: Gas storage

This means agencies could power their communication system in the field using an improvised local network if a disaster wipes out Internet connectivity, electricity, or both, like Hurricane Katrina did along the Gulf Coast.

FORBES: Crisis Communicating

The government has already tweaked the planning system to allow Whitehall to overrule local objections to new power stations, and a new Infrastructure Planning Commission is supposed to take a more dirigiste approach to big building projects.

ECONOMIST: Energy and climate change

As last summer's outage in America showed, local operators often do not know when or where power has gone out on their system.

ECONOMIST: MONITOR

Svyazinvest's bosses will therefore have power over almost all of Russia's communications system (in many regions, the local telephone firms also hold the first cellular-telephone licences).

ECONOMIST: Russian privatisation