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.
Pompano Beach is a city in Broward County, Florida, along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean just to the north of Fort Lauderdale. The Nearby Hillsboro Inlet forms part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. As of 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city's population was 102,745. It is part of the South Florida metropolitan area, which is home to 5,413,212 people. Pompano Beach is currently in the middle of a redevelopment process of its neglected beachfront which promises to reinvent the city. The city has also been listed as one of the top real estate markets being featured in CNN, Money and the Wall Street Journal as one of the country's top vacation home markets. Pompano Beach Airpark, located within the city, is the home of the Goodyear Blimp Spirit of Innovation.