Phone companies traditionally provided handsets because it was part of a packaged service. But the handset has no part in the billing process for a landline. It’s the equivalent of a washing machine or oven – it’s just the device that consumes whatever the utility is selling – which in the case of the phone companies was minutes of connection time. At the point where other devices came to market which provided means for the consumer to use more minutes, such as cordless phones, fax machines and PSTN modems, most phone companies were happy to let the consumer buy as many as they wanted from as many sources they wanted, as this just meant more minutes and higher bills.

The rate at which they realised this varied from county to country. Some wanted to keep their brand on the phone for as long as possible. Some still do, but sell the phones through a retail channel. There used to be a similar model for energy, at least in the UK, where gas and electricity suppliers had high street shops selling appliances. That model died as well.

The crucial difference is that the way phone infrastructure developed allowed metering of your minutes to be done at the local exchange. That’s because an individual line goes from the exchange to each property. You didn’t need anything in the phone or your house. If it were possible to meter electricity or gas in the same way from a substation we wouldn’t have meters. Utilities would far rather not go to individual homes or bear the costs associated with meters. But the economics are different. It’s cheap to send a phone wire to every property. Whereas it’s uneconomic to implement the same topology with energy. So we have meters.

The corollary is that most utilities hate meters. They make billing complicated. Utilities like simplicity. So I think that drawing analogies to phones or even worse to smartphones and downloadable apps is a fiction. It might be possible, but it’s like trying to sell raw steak to a vegetarian.