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.
Beaver Falls is a city in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 9,920 at the 2000 census. It is located 31 miles (50 km) northwest of Pittsburgh, and on the Beaver River, six miles (9 km) from its confluence with the Ohio River. A variety of manufacturing plants had kept the residents busy in the twentieth century; however, the city has suffered a fair amount of economic malaise lately due to the decline in the steel-making capacity in the Pittsburgh region where Beaver Falls is situated.