ALLO Communications Secures $650M in Sustainable Financing from Calix

Calix, Inc. has announced that longtime customer ALLO Communications (ALLO) has secured $650 million in sustainable financing, driven in part by their investment in the Calix broadband platform—Calix Intelligent Access EDGE™, Calix Cloud®, and Calix Revenue EDGE™.

Sustainable finance is an investment that considers the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors of an economic activity or project. ALLO’s newly secured financing will help them further expand their green broadband network to subscribers across Nebraska, Colorado, and Arizona.

ALLO is using the end-to-end Calix broadband platform to demonstrate environmental leadership by:

Reducing broadband network power consumption 73 percent. By consolidating the number of systems required in their access network, ALLO is dramatically lowering power consumption, saving valuable space in data centers and offices, and reducing cooling requirements.

Delivering a superior Wi-Fi experience using 50 percent less power. By deploying Calix GigaSpire® BLAST systems on Revenue EDGE, ALLO subscribers enjoy whole-home Wi-Fi 6 and 6E coverage without the need for additional energy-consuming hardware such as mesh units or pods—cutting energy consumption in half.

Reducing costly—and environmentally unfriendly—truck rolls 40 percent. By leveraging the power of Calix Cloud (including Calix Operations Cloud and Calix Support Cloud) to gain deep insights into network performance, ALLO customer support and operations teams can troubleshoot remotely and focus on proactive network maintenance. This means significantly fewer truck rolls to fix or replace equipment.

Eliminating the need for fixed wireless community networks and reducing 5G footprint. Calix SmartTown™ (community-wide Wi-Fi) was developed when ALLO identified an opportunity to creatively close the digital divide for students and residents by leveraging the Revenue EDGE solution and portfolio of GigaSpire BLAST systems. This managed service is deployed with zero incremental capital, power consumption, or carbon footprint, thereby eliminating the need for wireless community networks and reducing the need for new 5G towers.

In May 2023, ALLO unveiled their Sustainability Financing Framework (Framework). Based on public guidelines—known as The Principles—set out by the International Capital Market Association (ICMA), ALLO’s Framework successfully demonstrated that their broadband expansion on the Calix platform would meet criteria around energy efficiency, renewable energy, and the ability to provide access to essential services to underserved customers. ALLO’s commitment to ubiquitous fiber service, supporting nonprofits, and energy efficiency helped them achieve an S2SQ Sustainability Quality Score of “very good.”

“Our partnership with Calix has been our engine for growth and innovation, enabling us to stand apart from the competition by offering compelling managed services and transforming the communities that we serve,” said Brad Moline, president and chief executive officer at ALLO. “By leveraging the unique sustainability benefits of the Calix broadband platform combined with our fiber investment, support of nonprofits, and overall business values, we’ve secured sustainable financing that will fuel our next era of growth. This is a huge endorsement of our ESG strategy and will support our continued innovation as we deliver exceptional broadband experiences to our subscribers.”

An industry pioneer in social, environmental, and ethical responsibility, Calix recently consolidated its various initiatives into a single corporate social responsibility (CSR) unit. Led by Martha Galley, this new office builds on the product, supply chain, and cultural programs already in progress to further expand and amplify the company’s positive impact on customers, employees, and society. The Calix CSR office will build on an existing bank of broadband funding expertise and expand to actively assist customers in attracting and acquiring sustainable financing based on their green initiatives.

“The Calix platform enables innovative leaders like ALLO to guide us on how it can be best leveraged to achieve their goals,” said Michael Weening, president and chief executive officer at Calix. “ALLO is setting the bar for positive impact on the environment and the communities they serve. The Calix broadband platform unlocks new opportunities for investment, enabling broadband service providers like ALLO to revolutionize their business and transform their communities through green broadband. They can simplify their networks with Intelligent Access EDGE, eliminating a myriad of complexity and boxes—thereby yielding significantly better operating margins while being more energy efficient. And now, because ALLO pushed us to think differently, broadband service providers of all sizes can repurpose Wi-Fi systems to act like small cells so underprivileged children can access safe and secure broadband anywhere in their communities. I cannot thank Brad Moline and his team enough for their ideas, innovation, and partnership as they change the states they serve. We are proud to be their partner as they keep winning.”