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.
Upperville is a small town in Fauquier County, Virginia, fifty miles from downtown Washington, D.C. through which Rt. 50 runs. Founded in the 1790s along Pantherskin Creek, it was originally named Carrstown by first settler Josephus Carr. Through an 1819 Act passed by the Virginia General Assembly, the name was changed to Upperville. John Updike wrote of Upperville in his sardonic 1961 poem Upon Learning That a Town Exists Called Upperville.