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.
Elizabethton is the county seat of Carter County, Tennessee, United States. Elizabethton is also the historical site both of the first independent American government settlement located west of both the Eastern Continental Divide and the original thirteen British colonies known as the Watauga Association, the historical site of the Transylvania Purchase, and a major historic muster site for the Battle of Kings Mountain. The population of Elizabethton was enumerated at 13,372 during the 2000 U.S. Decennial Census.