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.
North Andover is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 27,202 at the 2000 census. North Andover is the nominal home of Merrimack College, a private, Catholic four-year college (though the college has expanded into Andover as well). From 1646 to her death in 1672, North Andover was the home of America's first published poet, Anne Dudley Bradstreet and her family.