West Carolina Tel Taps Calix to Grow ARPU, WiFi 6 Experience

Calix, Inc. has announced that West Carolina Tel (WCTEL) has grown average revenue per user (ARPU) by 31 percent year over year. The regional communications cooperative has employed two Calix Revenue EDGE strategies: targeted upgrade campaigns and ensuring that new members start with the right level of services.

First, WCTEL leveraged the real-time behavioral insights generated by Calix Marketing Cloud (CMC) to shift thousands of members to the optimal service tiers, reducing service limit hits by 92 percent and improving member experience. Second, WCTEL expanded its highly successful managed Wi-Fi offering, combining Calix Support Cloud with the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6™GigaSpire BLAST u6, virtually eliminating the need for Wi-Fi extenders and bringing the ultimate Wi-Fi 6 experience to their members.

“With more and more people working, learning, and accessing entertainment from home, getting their services up and running as efficiently as possible while ensuring that they have the right services for their needs is crucial,” said Jeff Wilson, chief executive officer for West Carolina Tel. “The insights from Calix Marketing Cloud allowed our marketing teams to identify members who needed to be on a higher service tier, proactively improving their experience, eliminating a churn risk, and in the process improving our ARPU, which we reinvest in our business and return to our members. On the experience side, we have been leading our market with managed Wi-Fi services. The addition of the new BLAST systems ensures we remain the leader in our market by offering the best Wi-Fi 6 experience while keeping our technicians happy as it is the perfect managed system. It is easy to install, easy to maintain, and provides all the capabilities that we require—four ethernet ports for IPTV and other devices, and POTS. When compared to the latest consumer routers, there’s no contest.”

Formed in 1952 with a Rural Electrification Administration loan, WCTEL has evolved from its roots as a telephone cooperative, now delivering full triple play services with Gigabit broadband and IPTV. The rural cooperative delivers a differentiated experience to residential and business subscribers across western South Carolina and northern Georgia. Already driving impressive results with CMC, WCTEL is leveraging the combination of Calix EDGE Insights and EDGE Systems to push the subscriber experience to new heights. The Wi-Fi 6 connectivity delivers unmatched performance, enabling subscribers to connect increasing numbers of devices without fear of service degradation.

“Work and learn from home are the new norm, and WCTEL is clearly the best choice for subscribers whose needs are growing rapidly,” said Michael Weening, EVP of global operations for Calix. “Their world-class Calix fiber network, managed Wi-Fi experiences leveraging Calix Support Cloud, and now the BLAST u6, are delivering the ultimate experience in their market. When WCTEL couples that with the incredible insights that CMC delivers on a subscriber’s needs, the initial jump in ARPU is just the start. Cable companies dominated the last decade by winning versus VDSL; this next stage will see subscribers fleeing the poor experience of cable for fiber and a fully managed, industry leading Wi-Fi 6 experience like WCTEL’s offering.”