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.
Intercourse, Pennsylvania (pop. roughly 1,000) is an unincorporated village in Leacock Township, Lancaster County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, ten miles east of Lancaster on PA 340. The village is located within the 17534 ZIP code, 717 area code, 768 is the local exchange. As with the nearby towns of Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania, Blue Ball, and Paradise, Pennsylvania, Intercourse is a popular site for tourists because of its location in "Amish country". The movie Witness was filmed in Intercourse and For Richer or Poorer was set there, though not filmed in Intercourse. Sign posts for the town are frequently targeted by thieves.