Just wondering what your local services are like, say, how good/bad is your credit card company, banks, utilities, mobile carrier, metro system, etc. is. Give reasons, like is it expensive, do you get lots of shutdowns for some reason, do you have bad bank interest rates and things.
My mobile carrier is run by a bunch of evil bastards who give me spotty 3G reception. Thanks a lot, 3.
ISP: I use Netvigator, which is not bad, with cheap broadband DSL that is fast, and they even throw in some nice IPTV.
Public transport is great (seeing as Hong Kong is as big as a sardines tin), with the MTR (the rapid-transit service here) and their 1-minute intervals during rush hour and 2-minute intervals in off-peak times. They've got cell reception and even wi-fi, but of course, they make you pay for that.
Electric company is a monopoly that costs quite a lot of coins, but no blackouts (thankfully). The water we have is supposedly clean enough to drink, but it's generally tradition to boil the water first, but it's not like we have to bring in cases of Evian.

ISP: I'm with Telstra, so horribly overpriced & low caps. To be fair, I've had about 2 days of downtime in the last 6 years.
Banks: One of the major banks. No issue with them, but I pay off any debts within a week. Fees are quite reasonable, I'm on plans where I don't get charged unless I have a certain low amount of savings (re: penalise the poor), CC charges are about $55AU per year.
Public Transport: What is that?? Oh right. Well, in SA, it's fairly pathetic.
Roads: Patchy, not enough lighting. And I almost lost my home a year ago due to plans for the new highway. Instead, we get to keep it, and talked the local/state council into building a large noise-block fence.
Utilities: Solar Panel on the roof for heating, excess goes back into the grid and cuts down on our power bill. Water is available, but due to the drought conditions we have rationing for certain areas. Septic system for sewage.

I'm in much thne same situatuion as Ois, I'm with Netspace who aren't cheap but give good size bandwidth caps with generally excellent reliability. The only times I've had downtime have been when the local infrastructure was to blame (I think wagga's telecomms grid is made of rolled up tinfoil) or when there was an uncontrollable external issue like fuckuing massive bushfires between me and the ISP
My bank is usually fairly good but if you get overdrawn they start getting a bit nasty. Also they gouge on international currency exchange but even with that, a shit exchange rate and having to pay postage, its STILL cheaper to buy DVDs from the UK amazon than to get them in town.
Our public transport is sort of okay. Mostly only covers major locations but is generally reliable. The bus to uni is usually running a bit late but then very little about my uni is good. Well except for my screenwriting lecturer, she's damned easy on the eyes.
Our utilities are so-so. Expensive but reliable power, cheap but mid-low quality water (mostly because of old pipes), garbage bin is WAY too fucking small, clearly made for 1 person living alone, 3 adults in one house fill it 2 days after its emptied even with separating recycling.

Of course I could be wrong on this one.
[/troll] (haha oh wow)
I use Comcast for my internet, fast and unreliable but I'd take it over the dependably slow AT&T DSL any day.
Banking: Bank of America
Cellphone: AT&T (lol exclusive iPhone carrier)
Utilities are shitsux. Power goes out everyday for a few seconds minimum without fail. The water tastes like shit, I get my drinking water delivered every few weeks by Culligan.
Don't use public transportation at all even though its readily available. I use my van or bicycle and generally keep within a 3-4 mile radius from my house. If I ever leave it that is. Garbage is huuuuuge and I never manage to fill it more than halfway, but that might have something to do with my obsession with recycling.

The phone company I have to use for iPhone, could be better but I have no real complaints except for their annoying as hell adverts on TV, but that's Softbank for you.
Banks, I never bother with. And why should I when I earn as much interest in a bank account as I do by leaving my money in my safe at home? When I need to receive payments from over seas, I go through the post office; it's faster and cheaper.
The credit cards I have aren't even issued by a bank, but by electrical stores. Great for purchasing in those specific stores or online, but you can't really use credit cards as a replacement for cash over here at all.
The internet is still too slow for my liking and it looks like we won't be seeing fibre optics laid down in this area for another 5 to 10 years. So that sucks, but it's not the fault of any specific provider but of NTT who are responsible for the telecommunication infrastructure. It seems to them that the neighbouring mountains with only a handful of people living around them, are far more deserving of fibre optics than the town I live in (which has a far larger population)!
The only real public transport in this part of the country is overpriced Taxis driven by people who don't know where they are going or even, where they are. Or trains which tend to arrive on time but the schedule is so poorly planned that a ten minute journey still take upwards of 2 hours.

I use https://www.wirecard.com/wirecard/app as virtual creditcard as I don't own a "real" one. That's basically a normal bank account with a credit card attached to it. You can pay with the cc as long as your account allows it. The fee is about €1.- per €100.- transfered.
As I haven't had the need for a cc in real life, it's by far the cheapest option.
Our banks were quite reliable till the current crisis.
1, Fortis/ABN has been taken over by the government to prevent bankrupcy.
The 2nd, ING, has had billions of support from the government.
The 3rd, Rabobank (luckily the 1 I use), is still going strong.
That's the 3 major banks, we also have a few smaller ones.
The quality and accessiblity of public transport in my country partly depends on where you live.
If you're in the west of the country it's very accessible and frequent, in the rest it's less frequent.
There are some problems with it, mainly caused by working on the infrastructure and politicians.
Our governemnt, no matter which parties are in it, seem to have a talent for making the most incapable politician responsible for it. And all of those seem to have to think of and start up some major project which is highly expensible, will go over it's budget 2 or 3 times and is destined to fail. The current 1 is no exception.
We currently have to big projects running, 1 of which is doomed to become highly bureaucratic and costly for civilians and problaby companies as well.
The 2nd 1 is partly active now which is the only good news it had so far. It's public transport with a kind of prepaid card. I'm not going to fully describe it, but so far it faced the following setbacks (among others):
- high costs for development and research while other countries (UK, Brasil, Germany among others) already have a simular system which in some cases is based upon open standards (Germany, our neighbouring country)
- our solution probably won't be interchangable with foreign ones (again Germany)
- logging on costs more than you're likely to pay for transport. The difference should be paid back by logging off, but that doesn't always work
- no 2 way tickets anymore. 2 one way tickets are more expensive than 1 2 way ticket
- your privacy is screwed as all data is logged for 7 years and access seems to be quite open for a lot of organizations
- if you choose some privacy you pay more
- the tol boot system has already been hacked
- the chip in the card can be copied from a distance, so people can travel on your expenses
- and there's likely more to come ...
Since we're a rather small country with quite a high population density, our infrastructure for a lot of facilities is excellent.
We have a lot of ISPs, several options for tv (no competition on the cable yet, 3 companies own most of the networks), several phone operators both mobile and old fashioned.
There's a wide variety in subscriptions offering all kinds of differences in speed, options, prices, etc.
My ISP is UPC/Chello which is active in several European countries.
3 public tv stations with a dozen or so broadcasting companies, several commercial tv stations. 4 or 5 public radio stations (I think, don't listen to the radio) and several commercial ones.
Restaurants and bars are expensive.
Paying €2-2.50 for a 0.25 liter of beer or cola is a normal price.
In some cities like Amsterdam it's even more expensive.
Utilities are still very good and reliable.
Power failure or lack of gas or water hardly ever occurs.
Unfortunately cities and provences who owned 2 of our largest electricity companies decided to sell those to foreign companies.
We have no idea what the future will bring us, but higher prices and less quality are very well possible.