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.
Mount Victoria is an unincorporated community in southern Charles County, Maryland, United States, between the Wicomico and Potomac Rivers. It was named for an enormous farm of 15,000 acres owned by Robert Crain, an attorney and farmer whose lobbying efforts led to the opening in 1927 of the Maryland portion of U.S. Highway 301. This farm was said at the time to be the largest private landholding in Maryland.