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.
Two Dot is a small unincorporated community in west-central Wheatland County, Montana, United States, along the route of U.S. Route 12. The town was a station stop on the now-abandoned transcontinental main line of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad ("the Milwaukee Road"), and was the site of one of the substations of the railroad's electrification project. Two Dot was founded in 1900 as a station on the Montana Railroad, local predecessor to the Milwaukee Road. For much of the town's history, two variant spellings of the town's name were in use: "Two Dot," and "Twodot. " The "Two Dot" spelling is now generally accepted as being correct, and the name of the town's post office was officially changed from Twodot to Two Dot in 1999.