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.
Hammonton, founded by Charles K. Landis, is a town in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the town population was 12,604. It is located directly between Philadelphia and the resort town of Atlantic City, along a former route of the Pennsylvania Railroad currently used by New Jersey Transit's Atlantic City Line. Hammonton was settled in 1812 and incorporated as a town by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 5, 1866, from portions of Hamilton Township and Mullica Township.