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.
Gloster is a town in Amite County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 1,073 at the 2000 census. It is part of the McComb, Mississippi Micropolitan Statistical Area. T. T. Martin, an evangelist and one of the most prominent figures in the anti-evolution movement in the 1920s, is buried in Gloster.