What’s a Subscriber Wi-Fi Score? Why Do You Need It?

I can’t think of a lot of places without Wi-Fi today. Whether I am starting the day at my favorite coffee shop, or waiting at the dreaded dentist office, I am connected to Wi-Fi. Even when I travel, whether I am on a plane, in an airport, or at a hotel, Wi-Fi makes streaming my favorite shows, syncing work files, and family FaceTime easy and seamless. So, it should come as no surprise that when we are at home we expect the best possible Wi-Fi experience.

And for any service provider trying to deliver top-notch subscriber experience, staying on top of their customers’ Wi-Fi performance is a must. But how do you gauge if your subscriber’s Wi-Fi experience is good, bad or mediocre? And can you tell if it’s improving or deteriorating over time and why?

At Calix, we simplified this complicated problem by developing a Wi-Fi Score for every subscriber. We all know that what gets measured gets improved.

First, a look at what a Wi-Fi Score is.

Think of Wi-Fi Score as one of the critical measures of subscriber experience. It as a simplified indicator of Wi-Fi performance, and measured on a scale of 0-5, with 0 being the worst and 5 the best. It is calculated based on upstream and downstream PHY rates, airtime utilization, interferences, dropped packets, and signal strength.

Simply put, a 0 Wi-Fi Score means it’s completely unusable. At 1, you are limited to web browsing. 2 works for Skype/Facetime video calls. You’ll need at least a 3 for HD video and gaming. At 4 you are 4K TV and VR/AR ready. And at a perfect 5, you can expect a flawless 8K TV experience.

More importantly, how can a Wi-Fi Score help?
With Calix Support Cloud (CSC) and GigaFamily products, service providers have this advanced Wi-Fi intelligence at their fingertips, and can use it to automatically measure subscriber experience, and take appropriate actions to continuously improve.

• Faster Troubleshooting: When a subscriber calls in, a CSR can easily see what the Wi-Fi score is in addition to other essential information on an intuitive interface. Knowing if the score is low and why dramatically cuts down troubleshooting time. For example, a Wi-Fi Score of 2 is just not going to cut it for a subscriber that is a heavy gamer.
• Reduced Churn Risk: CSRs and marketing organizations can run outbound campaigns targeting customers with low Wi-Fi Scores to reduce churn and increase customer loyalty.
• Proactive Subscriber Support: By analyzing dynamic shifts in the score as new devices are added and environmental elements change within the home, Service providers can not only closely monitor and improve individual subscriber experience, but also discover macro trends to preempt issues and support calls across the entire subscriber base.

Check out CSR Outbound Sales Call Best Practices on the Calix Community for tips on shifting from a reactive to a proactive support model.

 Learn more about other ways Calix Support Cloud helps find and fix subscriber Wi-Fi issues here.