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.
Nesmith is an unincorporated community in Williamsburg County, South Carolina, United States. It was a station on the Seaboard Air Line Railroad line which was built about 1912. Today it consists of a post office, fire station, and a country store, serving a large rural area which depends on agriculture and logging. Black Mingo Creek flows alongside the hamlet. The community was named after the Nesmith family.