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.
Blacksburg is a town in Cherokee County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 1,880 at the 2000 census. The communities of Cherokee Falls, Kings Creek, Cashion Crossroads, Buffalo, and Mt. Paran are located within or near the town. Blacksburg is in The Upstate of SC on the I-85 corridor about 45 miles southwest of Charlotte, North Carolina and is part of the Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson Combined Statistical Area (CSA) which has a population of 1,173,433 according to 2004 estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau.