The Beacon
November 2019
What an amazing week at ConneXions 2019! Based on the feedback from all of you who joined us in Las Vegas and via the livestream, we raised the bar for you once again. As you saw on the main stage, the dominant narrative was delivered by you, our customers, sharing your success stories. In all, we hosted 19 of you on stage as we addressed key business imperatives ranging from letting insights be your guide, elevating the subscriber experience and your revenue, creating the ultimate managed experience, and building the last network you’ll ever need. Your personal stories were inspiring.
From the main stage, we shared major announcements that are already resonating in the market. This edition of the Beacon is dedicated to providing you with the latest updates and perspectives around these announcements and the 19.4 release:
What excited me the most was seeing a wide range of new faces this year. In fact, we saw a 37 percent increase in first-time attendees. We also saw dramatic increases in attendees representing marketing (up 20 percent) and customer services (up 50 percent). This further validates the role-based summits we held over the weekend like the Marketer’s Summit and the Smart Cities Summit. So, you can bet that we will continue to create more experiences like this for ConneXions 2020.
To expand on this idea of being more role-based in our experiences, I am happy to announce that next week, we will launch a new newsletter called “The Revenue EDGE Beacon”. It will be issued bi-monthly and focus on the business challenges, opportunities, and best practices for delivering the ultimate managed subscriber experience.
In each issue, you can look forward to perspectives from marketing guru Terry O’Reilly, our go-to-market partners Pivot, WordSouth, and Cornerstone Group, our friends at Decision Counsel (creators of The Millers and InyComm videos) as well as your peers and Calix executives. To ensure you receive your copy, just click the sign-up link below.
Finally, as we did with the 19.3 release, we have created a Technical Edition complete with quick access to the 19.4 release summaries and technical documentation on MyCalix. See the link below.
Thank you for making ConneXions 2019 our best conference yet! Please see videos, photos, and sessions materials from our exciting week in Las Vegas.
AVP, Product Marketing Subscriber Experience,
Calix
Subscribers’ needs continue to evolve with an explosion of applications and devices that make their lives faster, easier, better, more efficient, and more fun. The Revenue EDGE, announced at ConneXions, enables you to embrace the opportunity at the subscriber edge to make it a richer experience and ultimately drive new revenues and returns for subscribers and members. While others focus on the single components of the subscriber experience, Calix wants to ensure you are enabled with the power of end-to-end visibility into your subscribers’ experiences.
As you have heard, the company with the best insights wins. The home invaders are not in the business of hardware. They are in the business of information. The Revenue EDGE foundation is yours for the taking and Calix is here to help you with:
With the Revenue EDGE foundation in place, you are ready for our two new EDGE Suites to help you generate incremental revenue and elevate the subscriber experience. ExperienceIQ™ enables enhanced parental controls through the CommandIQ app, with content, application, and website filtering, time limits, and usage information. ProtectIQ™ enables network security at the GigaSpire, with virus, malware, and malicious website protection for the home network. We also announced our new partnership with Samsung SmartThings, with more to come on that in 2020.
To learn more about the Revenue EDGE, visit our web page and make sure you have all the foundational pieces needed to turn your subscriber edge into the Revenue EDGE. In addition, join our webinar on November 20 and learn more about how service providers are embracing the Revenue EDGE.
AVP, Product Marketing Subscriber Experience,
Calix
While I have provided an overview of the Revenue EDGE, a service provider’s blueprint for delivering differentiated subscriber experiences, I wanted to take a moment for a deeper dive on some of the foundational components, EDGE Insights.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Insights are an absolute essential if you want to ensure your business is thriving and growing. Everyone realizes the power of data, but only service providers who are fastest to derive value from it are best positioned to lead.
Starting with Calix Marketing Cloud, that leadership comes from uncovering new business opportunities and personalizing subscriber engagement. With Calix Support Cloud, it comes from providing the intelligence needed to deliver on the promise of the superior experience your subscribers expect. Your business can easily get on the fast track with Calix Cloud.
2. Insights trigger new and improved business practices. Hundreds of Calix Cloud customers are discovering new ways to apply insights across their businesses.
3. Insights continue to evolve and grow in value. Today with EDGE Insights, service providers are growing their businesses, reducing churn, reducing operating costs, streamlining customer care operations, and delivering the ultimate subscriber experiences.
And as subscriber behaviors, your business, the services you offer, and the Calix Cloud platform continue to evolve, there is no limit to the value the insights offer. Here are a few new features in the latest Calix Cloud release (19.4):
For a closer look at Revenue EDGE, be sure to watch our webinar replay on new updates to Calix Support Cloud and register for the upcoming webinar on November 20.
Source: broadbandtrends
Report No. 19-1100, June 2019
Senior Director, Solutions Marketing, Calix
If you were at Calix ConneXions 2019, I’m sure you felt the excitement. There were many things to be excited about at the conference, but 10G PON is one that cannot be overlooked.
We heard Verizon share how they have deployed thousands of NG-PON2 ports and continue to innovate with Calix on the technology, including bonding four NG-PON2 wavelengths to reach 40 Gbps. The ability to add wavelengths as needed enables Verizon to not only deploy 10G services today, but deliver greater than 10G when needed on a unified PON network built on AXOS.
We also heard from BrightRidge (Electric Service Authority) and CityFibre (Open Access Provider) on how they plan to augment existing GPON and XGS-PON deployments with NG-PON2.
But why would a service provider would deploy GPON, XGS-PON, and NG-PON2 all in a single network? The answer is at the heart of Calix everyPON strategy.
Each PON technology has a specific purpose and benefit that makes it the right option in particular scenarios. As recent Calix Marketing Cloud data has shown, residential users don’t come close to hitting their limits on gigabit service, so GPON continues to make sense. In addition, with GPON deployments at their peak, service providers have many solution options to choose from.
But, if GPON meets most residential needs, when does it make sense to use XGS-PON or even NG-PON2? That was a common question at ConneXions. If you think of each PON technology as another wavelength on an existing fiber network, you can deliver the service that ensures the best subscriber experience while balancing your particular business needs.
For service providers like BrightRidge, this means delivering 10G symmetric services using XGS-PON to their subscribers today so they can win against their competition. They can then add NG-PON2 wavelengths in the future so they can deliver more bandwidth to a single subscriber, or using the network slicing concept, deliver new services separated by wavelengths on a single network.
Whichever technology you choose, the key is that with the AXOS E-Series Portfolio you can deliver every PON technology to your subscribers and meet their demands for an exceptional subscriber experience. The AXOS platform is the global leader is XGS-PON/NG-PON2 ports deployed and is growing with every release. In AXOS Release 19.4 you now have the option to deploy Layer 2 Triple Play services over everyPON using the E9-2 Intelligent Edge System.
Service providers need to own the subscriber experience. By providing Managed Wi-Fi across the entire home, service providers will take a massive step forward in reaching this goal while recognizing additional operational and business benefits. The overall service quality of experience (QoE) starts with the subscriber order, is impacted by the field installaton, and continues with the ongoing quality of service. This process places your installation technicians as front line ambassadors who can make a major impact on subscriber experience.
During a ConneXions breakout session, Justin Weeks of Calix Professional Services and Marcus Behnken from Liberty Communications shared their experience in delivering high-value services like Managed Wi-Fi. They highlighted that these rollouts require upfront planning, investment in operational processes, team training, and structured trials to ensure efficiency, consistency, and exceptional QoE. As a result, Liberty field techs saw a 7 fold improvement in network performance by using proper placement and configuration techniques.
When combining new technology with new offerings to make a strategy a reality, it’s important to use a structured approach that includes:
Calix Professional Services recently worked with Marcus and the Liberty Communications team on a Whole Home Wi-Fi and Smart Home Enablement Service engagement. With the lessons learned from the engagement, Marcus predicted a future savings on installation and ongoing maintenance. Marcus also noted, “Obviously, if we can reduce the amount of time it takes to do an install, that's just that much quicker of a payback and the service becomes profitable sooner. The benefits we got out of the service will improve our overall processes.”
The Whole Home Wi-Fi and Smart Home Enablement Service is a recommended add-on Professional Services offering to the Revenue EDGE Enablement Services. To find out more how companies like Liberty Communications and Consolidated Telcom have benefited, please visit the Calix Professional Services webpage.
Time to shout out the good news! It’s been a busy few months for the quiet work of developing technology standards and testing solution ecosystem interoperability.
Interoperability and technical standards compliance underly the products, systems, and services that companies like Calix develop. It’s easy to name a few: POTS, IPv4/v6, 802.11ax Wi-Fi, and so on – nearly every part of the network is tied firmly to the standards that enable end-to-end communications.
It takes hard work and commitment to create large scale communications networks and the global ecosystem of collaborative network operators and systems vendors has been dedicated to this work for many decades. As we look forward to the 19.4 Calix Cloud, EXOS, and AXOS software releases, it’s a good time to reflect on how Calix and our global ecosystem partners are quietly working behind the scenes to make it happen.
Give and get back. That’s the spirit of collaborative technology standards development. It’s an idea that aligns with the Calix mission of connecting everyone and everything, enabling communications service providers to elevate every aspect of their businesses – revenue, brand, and services. We all win together.
What’s your perspective?
There’s plenty more to read and share on the Calix Perspectives pages. I look forward to hearing your perspective.
In rural Montana, 3 Rivers Communications (3 Rivers) is serving members from the Canadian border to the Wyoming state line. Across it’s serving area, 3 Rivers has built an extensive fiber network and is closing in on bringing FTTH services to all subscribers within the next five years.
With this 5-year timeline in mind, it has been imperative that the cooperative streamline its operations to keep this expansive project moving forward. With the assistance of Calix Deployment Enablement Services, 3 Rivers has been able to deliver just that, accelerating network build outs and improving resource efficiencies by 50 percent.
Key to this Calix Professional Service is the MobilePRO App, which provides step-by-step guidance and automated, electronic documentation sharing across the 3 Rivers team and allows installation teams to become more efficient. 3 Rivers has also worked with the Calix team to customize the app to fit the specific needs of the project.
Learn more about the impact Calix Deployment Enablement Services has made for 3 Rivers, helping the cooperative to deliver a superior subscriber experience to more members as its network grows.
Pictured are 4 of the 21 E7 AXOS certified professionals from ConneXions 2019.
This year at ConneXions, over 400 customers, partners, and industry leaders attended the Sunday training sessions to help them take the lead with the latest in technology and solutions from Calix. At the end of the day, 21 Calix Academy pioneers completed the testing to become the first ever E7 AXOS Certification recipients. Thank you to everyone who participated and congratulations to those who passed and are now certified. “This is no small feat, and between them collectively they successfully completed hundreds of courses that led them here to this highest level of recognition,” commented Martha Galley, area vice president of customer success and management.
You can sign up to take the AXOS E7-2 Certification exam on the Calix Academy. If you were unable to make it to ConneXions and still would like to become certified, you can access the exam by going to Calix Academy and searching under “E7 AXOS Exam”.
For a limited time, Calix is offering the exam at no cost with the purchase of an Education Subscription before the end of the year. Subscribers will receive a coupon to take the exam (a $295 value).
Benefits of Subscription:
If you want to find out more, you can go to the web site and set up a consultation with an Calix Education Services Expert, or you can view past webinars on the Calix Webinar Hub.
Sign up for an upcoming Circles of Success! Circles of Success are small, interactive peer conversations among Calix customers, facilitated by a Calix Customer Success expert, talking about solution adoption, best practices, and user tips.
Rules of Engagement:
Each month, we highlight the top 5 recent Calix Blog posts to make sure you don't miss out on the latest news and insights from Calix experts and industry guests.
And don't forget to follow us and check out other insightful articles.
Role: Associate Systems Engineer, TAC
Location: Richardson, TX
Years of Service: 1 year
Calix Expertise: E7 EXA, Premises, AXOS
School: Methodist University
Favorite Movie: Unbroken
Favorite Vacation Spot: Maldives
Fun Fact: My legal name consists of 40 letters
If you had the money to buy one company, what would it be?: Microsoft!
Mature Release**
*Note: This software is at Early Adoption status with select customers conducting field tests and providing feedback. This program requires Calix pre-approval. If you are interesting in joining an Early Adopter group for a specific software release, please go to the Software Center (below), select the software in question and click the "Request Software" link.
**Note: Mature Release means the latest production software is current and recommended for use.
