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.
Pony is an unincorporated community in northeastern Madison County, Montana, United States on the eastern edge of the Tobacco Root Mountains. In the late nineteenth century, Pony was a prosperous gold-mining community with at least 5,000 residents. A number of historic buildings from Pony's boom era remain in the old town today. Former Montana Lieutenant Gov. Karl Ohs owned a ranch in Pony, where he died in 2007.