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.
Timberon is a census-designated place (CDP) in Otero County, New Mexico and is within the Sacramento Mountains at the southern edge of the Lincoln National Forest, directly north of the Fort Bliss Military Reservation. The population was 309 at the 2000 census. Timberon has a 9-hole golf course, as well as a lodge, a pool, a church, an airstrip and a volunteer fire department. The residents consider it a retirement and resort community.