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.
Port Royal is an incorporated town in Caroline County, Virginia, United States. The population was 170 at the 2000 census. Port Royal was established in the mid-17th century in the Colony of Virginia primary as a port on a navigable portion of the Rappahannock River for export of tobacco, Virginia's cash crop. Along an early stage road, it later became a crossroads along the busy modern highways of U.S. Route 17 and U.S. Route 301.