Utility Telecom: How We Started

At age 14, Jason Mills was a young entrepreneur. Inspired by the personal computer revolution of the 1980’s, he started his own business selling and installing business telephone systems. Mills ran Livermore Telephone Company out of his parents’ ranch and installed telephone sets, control equipment, and key service units at job sites throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

“I followed the phone line out of my Apple II+ computer modem in 1981 straight into a business enabling the Internet Economy of the new millennium. This was a very exciting time to work in a very dynamic industry,” says Mills.

After watching the work of a few veteran installers, Mills started working on small, individual business telephone systems with five lines and 20 phones. Although he was too young to drive, his mother drove him to jobs sites and helped handle the company’s finances. Livermore Telephone Company was highly successful and Mills grossed $20,000 before he graduated from junior high school in 1986.

Mills went on to relocate to Stockton where he was involved in several communications companies and internet service providers with a cumulative net worth valued at nearly a billion dollars. In 1996, with local telephone competition opening up, he founded Utility Telecom, focusing exclusively on services for businesses. What started as a one-man operation grew into a company that serves Internet and telephone service to businesses and organizations all over California and Nevada.

The services offered today by Utility include end-to-end Telecom, computer/IT, infrastructure, and operational and contingency planning for small to medium businesses throughout its footprint with local service technicians and salespeople. Utility specializes in engineered solutions to save businesses money through operational efficiencies. “We make businesses better,” says Mills.

With 31 years of expertise in telecommunications, Jason Mills is a pioneer in the competitive telecommunications industry. As a leader in the telecom sector for more than 20 years, Utility Telecom provides business communities with industry-leading Information Technology solutions and telecommunications services.