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.
Friendly is a town in Tyler County, West Virginia, in the United States. The population was 159 at the 2000 census. The town was likely named for Friend Cochrane Williamson, the grandson of Thomas Williamson, an early settler on the townsite. Friendly was incorporated in 1898. It is the setting of the novel Shiloh.