Utopia representative gives annual update to Perry City Council, answers questions on competition and take rate

Jason Robins, introduced to the council as Utopia’s presenter, gave an annual operations update at Perry’s March 26 council meeting and answered questions from council members about competition, take rates and finances.

Robins said Utopia started with a set of founding member cities that include Perry and has since expanded; the company has issued bonds (including an earlier $185 million issuance) and additional financing that Robins said are being repaid with system revenues. “We just started a new 2 and a half gigabyte per second product,” Robins said, adding that the company also offers a 10 gigabits-per-second option and that 250 megabits is currently the lowest tier offered to many customers.

Why it matters: Robins framed the update around network growth, customer adoption and the long-term bond schedule that he said matures in 2040, all of which affect how much the network can return to its member cities and how Utopia manages future build-outs.

In questions from Council member Blake Osler and others, Robins addressed competitive pressure from satellite services and other fiber providers. “We think STARLINK’s a great product for what it’s used for,” Robins said, but added that satellite capacity and long-term maintenance make it a different product from fiber-to-the-home. He noted federal rules that limit taxing some pure internet-only providers and said municipalities can still enforce construction and pole standards.

On local adoption, Robins said Perry’s take rate is “right around 50%” by his calculation but cautioned that address-data issues can make the denominator appear larger; he offered to provide the council’s staff with more detailed take-rate data. He also estimated churn at about 4–5% and said most customer losses reflect household moves rather than dissatisfaction.

Robins described UIA and Utopia as sister companies with overlapping ownership and revenue flows; he said UIA is profitable and that increasing UIA revenue has enabled larger distributions back to cities. “Last year, Perry’s portion of that distribution check was 38,000, almost $39,000. This year, we’re planning on sending $41,000 here in June,” Robins told the council.

The council pressed Robins on door-to-door sales and on the company’s ability to handle outages and service issues; Robins said Utopia has redundancy but acknowledged localized outages can take time to repair. He offered to share additional take-rate and address-cleanup plans with city staff.

Next steps: Robins said he would provide take-rate data to the city and confirmed he could be contacted through Utopia’s executive director for follow-up questions.