Public utilities provide electric, gas, water or telephone service to customers in a specified area. Utilities have a duty to provide safe and adequate service on reasonable terms to anyone who lives within the service area on without discriminating between customers. Because most utilities operate in near monopolistic conditions, they can be heavily regulated by local, state, and federal authorities. Generally, the local and state agencies are called Public Service Commissions (PSC) or Public Utility Commissions (PUC). Municipal Utilities and Rural Electric Cooperatives may be unregulated though.
Wrangell is a city and borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. At the 2000 census the population was 2,308. Its Tlingit name is Ḵaachx̱aana. áakʼw, and the Tlingit people residing in the Wrangell area call themselves the Ḵaachx̱aana. áakʼw Ḵwáan, or alternately the Shtaxʼhéen Ḵwáan after the nearby Stikine River. Wrangell was part of the former Wrangell-Petersburg Census Area until its incorporation as a city-and-borough on June 1, 2008. The central (urban) part of Wrangell is located at 56°27′23″N 132°22′40″W / 56.45639°N 132.37778°W / 56.45639; -132.37778, in the northwest corner of Wrangell Island, whereas the borough now encompasses the entire eastern half of the former Wrangell-Petersburg Census Area, in addition to the area around Meyers Chuck, which was formerly in the Prince of Wales-Outer Ketchikan Census Area.