Water service is surprisingly expensive. In Ascoli Piceno, the local water provider is called CIIP (Cicli Integrati Impianti Primari) Vettore, where Mt. Vettore is the tallest mountain in our part of the Apennines.
Most water service is individually billed according to a meter somewhere in or near your dwelling. The meter reader comes very infrequently, so your bill is usually an estimate. Therefore, it makes sense for you to take regular readings of your meter and report them on the CIIP website.
(We might want to add info on setting up water service?)
In recent times, we have experienced a rather severe water shortage in the Marche, in part due to drought and in part due to reduced water flow from the existing mountain sources due to seismological activity. As of March 2020, CIIP set the water system status at Allerte Rosso livello 2, which means that all the public water fountains have been turned off. In 2019, water services was turned off in late night for a period of time, but this is no longer the case.
Although the water from the Ascoli system is of extremely high quality, much of the housing stock is old and the water systems within those houses is old as well. Of particular concern are houses or condominiums that have water storage cisterns which need to be cleaned periodically. Some such cisterns, if deployed underground, can even experience infiltration of bacteria from the surrounding environment. In some cases, a periodic professional check of interior water quality might be advisable.