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.
Wilson, Virginia redirects here. For a community in Grayson County, Virginia, see Mouth of Wilson, Virginia. Wilsons is an unincorporated community in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, United States, along U.S. Route 460 between Petersburg and Blackstone. Several Civil War battles were fought in and around Wilsons, including the Battle of Five Forks. From the late 19th Century through mid-20th Century, it provided water for steam engines on the Norfolk and Western Railway, and the water tower remained a landmark of the town until the 1990s. Today it maintains a U.S. Post Office for its few hundred residents, near the intersection of Springston Road and Cox Road (Route 460).