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.
Colbert is a town in Bryan County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 1,065 at the 2000 census. It was incorporated in 1939. It was named after Benjamin Franklin Colbert, a Native American Chickasaw descendant of Scots trader James Logan Colbert and his Chickasaw wife Minta Hoye, who had five sons. The mixed-race Colbert men were prominent leaders among the Chickasaw for most of the 19th century.