Service Territory

Question

What is the purpose of the service territory?  Is it to prevent you from creating features outside your service area or is it a performance enhancement where restricting the extent of your network improves performance?  If it is performance, is it a proprietary discussion or could you explain how the service territory impacts the back end of the UN?

GIS_kiwi4 · Accepted Answer

@NathanHeickLACSD - You are spot on, it stops you creating features outside the service area.
But I suspect there are more reasons to this like - 
performance (validation time)
dirty area management
indexing

The Service area might also be used are a separation for different networks in different areas that a utility might operate.