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.
Bristolville is an unincorporated community in central Bristol Township, Trumbull County, Ohio, United States. Although it is unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP code of 44402. It lies at the intersection of State Routes 45 and 88. The community is part of the Youngstown–Warren–Boardman, OH-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area. One of the more notable natives of Bristolville is John Henrie Kagi, who fought with John Brown in Bleeding Kansas. He was second in command on Brown's Harper's Ferry raid, where he was killed at the age of 24. Kagi's sister, Barbara Kagy Mayhew and her husband Allen Mayhew were Bristolville natives who migrated to Nebraska City, Nebraska. Their 1855 cabin there is now the Mayhew Cabin museum recognized by the National Park Service as a station on the Underground Railroad.