Beacon
December 2022

You’ve heard me talk a lot about the need to think beyond speed. To ensure success in the long term, you need to deliver one thing: exceptional subscriber experiences. To enable you to build a successful future, Calix is now in our third phase of evolution. We’re focusing on enabling broadband service providers (BSPs) like you to grow value with an expanding ecosystem of managed services and capabilities. And we are excited about the future.
Out-innovating the big cable and legacy telcos and crushing the consumer giants to help you WIN is what drives Calix. We keep innovating to position you, our BSP partners, as the giants in your communities. You’ll do this by expanding beyond residential into new markets—including business and community—and delivering exceptional subscriber experiences built around portfolios of Wi-Fi-powered managed services.
With the end-to-end Calix solution, you already have everything you need to deliver these incredible experiences today. Now is the time to be the giant, wow subscribers, and send Net Promoter Scores℠ (NPS®) soaring. By doing so, you’ll build a trusted brand. As we shared at ConneXions, three things make this shift possible:
At ConneXions, we brought this to life—with Calix-partnered BSPs joining us onstage to share their journey of becoming experience providers to serve the needs of households, businesses, and their wider communities. Read Matt Collins’ article to learn how Calix customers are leading the way and becoming giants in their markets.
Our Calix-partnered BSPs have something so powerful in common: You love your customers, your towns, and your communities, and you add value to their lives. Together, we’re all part of this paradigm shift in our market. By embracing exceptional experiences, new markets open, your reach grows into more businesses and across towns, your residential footprints expand, and ultimately you change lives for the better. And it’s you, the BSP, that becomes THE trusted brand and a pillar in your communities.
Wishing you continued success,
Michael
As always, if you have any comments, questions, or concerns, please reach out to me at michael.weening@calix.com and connect with me on LinkedIn.
ConneXions 2022 was record-breaking. A record 2,600+ attendees joined us at the Wynn, with more GMs, marketers, customer support staff, and technical experts than ever before. Record attendance from Calix partners. More sessions, more speakers, and more great content. But the best part was not the records we broke. It was hearing stories from our customers, and hearing how excited and inspired you are to become giants for your subscribers and communities. (You don’t have to take my word for it; read this blog by Natalie Straight, marketing director at REV—“Be the Giant: Top 3 Insights From ConneXions 2022.”)
Driving the Rapid Expansion of the Platform Ecosystem and Managed Services
In addition to the dozens of leaders that took the stage at ConneXions, another star of the show was the rapidly expanding ecosystem of Calix managed services. As Michael Weening shared in the opening general session, we have entered a new era—announcing our 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th managed services. Our goal is to partner with you to bring amazing new services to your subscribers at unprecedented speed. With the four new services announced at ConneXions, we’re giving you even more opportunities to reach new markets—including business and community leaders—while expanding your residential footprints.
Giants like ALLO, MEC, Nex-Tech, Paul Bunyan, and Schurz have embraced managed services to become subscriber experience providers for residential subscribers, businesses, and their communities. Here are a few of the stories customers shared on the main stage:
All these BSPs have something important in common: Their subscribers love them. As these giants know, with every additional managed service you offer, you have another opportunity to create a lasting bond with your subscribers. You can show them love by giving them services that make their lives and communities better. And in return, your subscribers will love you right back.
Didn’t make it to ConneXions 2022? Watch the ConneXions Virtual Learning Experience on demand.
By increasing customer retention just 5 percent, brands can increase profits by 25 to 95 percent. With a return like that, it seems obvious that companies would focus on increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty. However, with an average Net Promoter Score℠ (NPS®) in the negative to low 20s territory, it’s clear that providing an exceptional subscriber experience has not been a priority for Tier 1 broadband service providers (BSPs).
You Can Be the Giant in Subscriber Experience
It doesn’t have to be this way. Hundreds of Calix-partnered BSPs—like Cumberland Connect, Jade Communications, MHTC, Norvado, Ontario & Trumansburg Telephone Companies, and STRATA Networks—are proof. They’re delivering amazing subscriber experiences and reaping the benefits: higher ARPU, lower subscriber churn, and NPS as high as the 90s. Here’s the formula for their success.
Fred Reichheld, creator of the NPS, recently shared that BSPs who consistently surprise their customers with new innovations—new experiences—maintain a higher NPS that yields loyalty for life. You can be one of those BSPs; just follow the formula and lead with experience.
Learn more about creating an exceptional subscriber experience. Download the eBook “The Definitive Guide to Subscriber Experience.”
As a successful broadband service provider (BSP) you have likely built your market reputation on providing a fast, secure, and supportive experience within subscribers’ homes and businesses. But are you extending that experience to the wider communities you serve? If not, you could be missing golden opportunities to grow your reputation, drive “stickiness,” and differentiate yourself from your competition.
There are many flavors of “public Wi-Fi” present today: pay-as-you-go services, hotspots subsidized by municipalities, and “free” Wi-Fi provided in public spaces, just to name a few. If you’ve ever tried to connect to such a service, you’ll know the experience usually isn’t great.
That’s why Calix has reimagined the community Wi-Fi experience with SmartTown™. It works by extending the existing home Wi-Fi experience beyond the four walls of the home and connecting subscribers to secure Wi-Fi experiences across town, parks, outdoor events, and on the go. SmartTown leverages your existing network investments in Calix Wi-Fi systems, including the GigaSpire® family and the recently announced GigaPro™ p6he designed for outdoor use.
SmartTown is deployed, managed, and supported by the same Calix platforms you use for residential and business, reducing operational complexity. That means that, unlike those frustrating “public Wi-Fi” experiences you may have tried before, the management of SmartTown replicates the trusted home Wi-Fi experience, making onboarding and troubleshooting a breeze—and security assured.
Here are five ways SmartTown will deliver value to your community:
Service providers such as Mississippi’s Tombigbee Fiber—a subsidiary of the Tombigbee Electric Cooperative—are already looking at opportunities to deploy SmartTown to their communities.
“We think SmartTown is an amazing concept that will enable us to bring a world-class offering to small towns across Mississippi, powering everything from smart water meters to connectivity at civic events,” says Scott Hendrix, CEO of Tombigbee. “In Tupelo, we already have Calix GigaSpire systems deployed all over town—so why add in another technology? By using our existing Calix platforms and cloud products, we can roll out SmartTown quickly and cost-effectively.”
So, get ready to become a giant in your community—and make your town a SmartTown.
Learn more about Calix SmartTown or request an executive briefing to get started.
Service providers seeking growth must unlock new markets and generate new ways to deliver value. Claix SmartTown™, for example, is a breakthrough solution that extends a subscriber’s residential Wi-Fi experience into their community—helping BSPs grow their businesses beyond the four walls of the home.
Support teams must keep pace. New services can involve different subscriber support needs, yet this doesn’t have to mean more complexity if support teams have access to the right data, tools, and resources.
That’s why we’re leveraging the power of Calix platforms to provide data from the WAN, residential gateways, Wi-Fi, connected devices, and subscriber apps. This gives end-to-end visibility into the subscriber experience, which can simplify support processes and drive efficiency. For example, we’re extending Calix Support Cloud (Support Cloud) to provide proactive monitoring and subscriber support for SmartTown—enabling support teams to easily integrate the new service into existing workflows.
All the Insight You Need in a Single View
Support Cloud gives support teams everything they need to know in one system and in a format they easily understand. They’re no longer drowning in data or “swivel-chairing” between different systems. They’re using actionable insights to troubleshoot faster and serve subscribers more efficiently. Furthermore, Calix Customer Success Services can help support teams optimize their operations—simplifying support even more. As a result, any concern about supporting a new service can be resolved.
Service providers are taking advantage of Support Cloud and the CommandIQ® mobile app, which allows subscribers to manage their own experience, to effectively support the rollout of managed services. Take Oklahoma-based Centranet, for example, which was able to grow its subscriber base to over 4,000 since launch in 2021 and deliver an exceptional customer satisfaction score of 9.5 out of 10 while:
Calix is helping BSPs such as Centranet every step of the way as they roll out and support exciting new managed services. By harnessing the power of our platforms, Calix is enabling even the smallest BSPs to deliver world-class customer support with Support Cloud and CommandIQ—and become giants in their markets.
Watch our webinar—“More Complexity. Fewer Problems. How Proactive Support Boosts the Broadband Subscriber Experience”—to discover how to use market insights to simplify subscriber support during times of growth
We’ve been serving our members across rural Tennessee for almost a century—initially with electricity and, more recently, with high-speed fiber broadband. Our reputation rests on providing a level of service our much larger competitors can’t match. We suffer disruptions and outages like everyone else, but it’s how we deal with them that makes the difference. In fact, rather than have frustrated subscribers calling us, we’re now able to proactively reach out to them with solutions.
We don’t have a crystal ball, but Calix has provided us with the next best thing: a proactive intelligence capability that gives us the tools to identify, prioritize, and fix network problems before they impact subscribers. Using tools such as Calix Operations Cloud (Operations Cloud), we get deep, real-time insights into subscriber-impacting events, whether they occur in the access network or in the home. And everything we need to know is instantly available in a single pane of glass.
By adopting this approach, we have been able to:
Building Trust and Delivering Value
By leveraging the power of the Calix platforms and cloud services, we have been able to drive an incredible Net Promoter Score℠ (NPS®) of over 90—reflecting the value we provide our communities. It has also revolutionized our field operations. For example, our truck roll efficiency is now at 95 percent. This means we’re sending a truck only when it’s absolutely necessary—which is a huge improvement from where we were just a couple of years ago. This is possible only due to the end-to-end network visibility Calix Cloud® provides.
By implementing advanced troubleshooting and issue resolution, we are strengthening the bonds of trust with our subscribers. And we’re being proactive about delivering an amazing subscriber experience.
Deliver an exceptional subscriber experience and drive greater efficiencies in your operations. Download our eBook, “Tame the Beast—Take Operations From Reactive to Proactive Through Insights and Automation.”
Service deployments can be challenging. Tough decisions need to be made on how to deploy infrastructure in tricky geographic environments—or if it’s even economically viable to do so. Today’s broadband service providers (BSPs) are seeking operationally efficient solutions that provide unparalleled deployment flexibility and accelerates their time-to-market market capabilities.
Rapidly Acquire New Markets While Turning Up Services With Greater Energy Efficiency
The power of the Calix Intelligent Access EDGE™ platform gives BSPs the flexibility to deploy a range of systems suited for different scenarios while maintaining a common operational model. The E3-2, for example, is optimized for low to mid-density areas and features a “deploy anywhere” design that does not require active cooling and can be mounted aerially, on a wall, on a pedestal, or on a pole. This flexibility dramatically reduces costs (BSPs can realize up to a 50 percent reduction in their total cost of ownership over a cabinet-based solution) while accelerating construction and service activation capabilities.
Subscribers in rural communities have long endured slow speeds and poor service. They can now expect better. The latest evolution of the E3-2 has doubled its density from four ports to eight ports. It can also combine GPON, XGS-PON, and a coexistence element into a single SFP+ optic allowing network operators to move subscribers from GPON to XGS-PON without touching the system.
By deploying E3-2 as part of an end-to-end Intelligent Access EDGE solution, BSPs can:
“As our current broadband markets continue to expand, it is increasingly critical that we can turn up operationally efficient broadband services in new markets at a fast pace,” said Terry Rubenthaler, chief operations officer at Midwest Energy & Communications. “The new E3-2 modules support these initiatives, combined with the unbeatable power of the Calix end-to-end platforms, and ensure that we can rapidly turn up and deploy new services that delight our subscribers easily and quickly.”
Delivering on the Green Broadband Promise
Building the most efficient network isn’t just about reducing the management and maintenance efforts required to operate the network. It’s also about reducing the total footprint—space, power, and cooling resources—required.
In the case of the newly upgraded E3-2, the increased port density means even fewer nodes need to be deployed to reach your rural and suburban subscribers. This results in a 50 percent reduction in energy usage per port.
Now you can secure a competitive advantage that is both cost-effective and environmentally friendly.
Learn more about the power of our platform. Download our Intelligent Access EDGE Solution Overview.
Service providers have vast data that continues to grow as they expand their managed services portfolios and add new subscribers. But it can be challenging to transform this data into actionable insights that drive results. That’s why the Calix Services team developed a new service—Customer Business Insights Services—that will help BSPs strategically leverage their data to grow their business.
Strengthen Subscriber Loyalty To Fuel Business Growth
Our first engagements in this service deconstruct Net Promoter Score℠ (NPS®) results. Many Calix customers are already tracking NPS, with impressive scores in the 50s and even as high as the 90s—far exceeding industry averages; ALLO Communications, Cumberland Connect, HTC, Jade Communications, and OTTC are just a few. Through our work with Jade, we found that 100 percent of survey respondents with the Jade Security managed service are NPS “Promoters” and extremely likely to recommend Jade to their friends.
Our goal is to help every Calix customer achieve a world-class NPS and create enduring subscriber loyalty that will fuel business growth. By combining NPS results with data from Calix Marketing Cloud (Marketing Cloud) and Calix Support Cloud (Support Cloud), we can identify detailed trends and insights that impact subscriber satisfaction. We follow with action plans to improve your subscriber relationships. Here are three insights that can guide you to NPS success:
It’s important to remember that NPS should be more than just a score or a KPI. It must be viewed as a long-term program and embraced across your organization. It can be the catalyst to help you better understand your subscribers’ wants and needs and ultimately lead to stronger relationships.
Learn how to unlock data-inspired decision making with Calix Business Insights Services.
Like so many other rural populations, tribal communities have fallen on the wrong side of the digital divide. Without adequate connectivity, they lack access to higher-paying jobs, education, healthcare, and more. The good news is that tribal communities have been prioritized in the recent waves of government funding for broadband infrastructure, with billions of dollars earmarked to tackle the issue of digital equity in indigenous communities.
Making the Move to Tribal Broadband Service Provider
While some tribes may partner with a local broadband service provider (BSP)—granting permission to build on tribal territory—we’re increasingly seeing tribes build their own networks. The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe in Akwesasne, New York, took the latter approach, establishing Mohawk Networks as a tribally owned BSP in 2015. I had the privilege of seeing Mohawk Networks grow as a BSP, having spent six years there before joining Calix this year.
As many new BSPs have found, rolling out a broadband network is the “easy” part. The bigger challenge lies in the ongoing operation: optimizing efficiency, supporting subscribers, introducing new services, and engaging through marketing. Here are three ways Mohawk Networks has developed a broadband network that will keep their community thriving.
Through their partnership with Calix, Mohawk Networks can focus on bigger, bolder goals: fulfilling government contracts and launching revenue-generating services that allow them to reinvest in their community. Mohawk Networks has transformed into a trusted BSP at the heart of their tribe—and set an example for other tribal communities.
Learn how to bring broadband to your tribal community. Register for Calix Broadband Academy.
Here are the five most recent blog posts from Calix experts and industry guests. Follow us and check out other insightful articles here.
Login required.
Be The GIANT for your Customer's Experience
Thursday, December 8th and Thursday December 15th
12:00 PM EST | 9:00 AM PST
CSC - CSR/Tier1 Troubleshooting Scenarios
Tuesday, December 13th
9:00 AM EST | 6:00 AM PST
COS Success Stories: Arlo Launch Tips and Tricks from Brandenburg Telephone Co
Wednesday, December 14th
3:00 PM EST | 12:00 PM PST
Revenue EDGE Boot Camp
Tuesday, December 20th
9:00 AM EST | 6:00 AM PST
3:00 PM EST | 12 PM PST
Midvale Telephone Company: The Journey to Becoming an Experience Priovider
Wednesday, December 21st
10:00 AM EST | 7:00 AM PST
Visit the Calix Virtual Engagements page for a full schedule of sessions (login required).
Visit the Calix Virtual Engagements page for a full schedule of sessions (login required).
EXOS
AXOS
EXA and CMS
*Mature
**Early Adoption
* Mature status means the release is the latest production version recommended for use.
** Early Adoption status means the release is with select customers for field evaluation to provide feedback. This program requires Calix pre-approval. If interested in joining an Early Adopter group, please go to the Software Center (link below), browse to the desired software, and click the "Request Software" link to submit a request.
Release Notes for R22.4
Calix Cloud
EXOS
AXOS