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.
Knightdale is a town in Wake County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 5,958 at the 2000 census, and estimated at 9,843 in January 2008. With the population boom experienced in the North Carolina Research Triangle area in the past two decades, Knightdale is a suburb of Raleigh, bordering that city at the Neuse River. The estimated population of the Raleigh-Durham-Cary Combined Statistical Area (CSA) was 1,565,223 as of July 1, 2006, with the Raleigh-Cary Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) portion estimated at 994,571 residents.