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.
Ismay is a town in Custer County, Montana, United States. The population was 26 at the 2000 census. The town's name is an amalgamation of Isabella and May, the names of the daughters of Albert J Earling, division superintendent (later president) of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway. Other communities with related names include Earling, Iowa; Marmarth, North Dakota; and Alberton, Montana. As a publicity stunt coordinated by the Kansas City Chiefs in 1993, the town unofficially took the name of Joe, Montana, after the NFL quarterback Joe Montana.