> I never signed a SLA with my power or water company. We know they try to keep the service(s) "up"... but if they can't, they can't.

In Italy, these services must be provided by law. Even small mountain towns where it's not profitable to provide the service must be covered. I'd be very surprised if this wasn't the case in any first world country.

I think you might be misunderstanding. You're seem to be talking about how much coverage is required for utilities. The person you're responding to appears to be specifically talking about the (lack of) guarantees for uptime, recovery, etc... for someone who already has service.

In the US, required coverage mandates are up to individual states to set and varies.