3 Ways To Create a Sustainable Tribal Broadband Business

A tribal broadband employee installing wire for a network outside of a home

Once your network design and build is complete, it’s time to underpin your broadband business with sustainable operations to ensure long-term revenue growth.

To start, you need a strong business strategy based on long-term, community-focused value. Lead with price and your subscribers will jump ship as soon as they can’t afford it—or a cheaper option comes along. Instead, build your business strategy on how broadband and its related value-added services can transform communities altogether—from small businesses to education, healthcare, workforce development, and more.

Sustainable broadband businesses extend beyond your own operational concerns. For a broadband business to truly make an impact on your tribal community, consider how to create additional revenue streams and achieve efficiencies. Here are three ways to add longer-term value:

Leverage data insights. Data points, trends, and insights enable you to make informed, data-driven decisions about your network, your subscribers, and your business. Network insights provide full visibility into your network operations—and help you pinpoint issues that can be proactively resolved, automate manual tasks, and identify ways to boost subscriber satisfaction. Data will also help reduce trouble tickets, freeing up precious resources to work on higher-value operational tasks.
Embrace managed services. Managed services offer amazing experiences beyond a simple broadband connection. Offering new applications and features creates greater value for your subscribers by offering an exceptional experience. Crucially, new services help differentiate you from other providers. The range of managed services now available—self-service mobile apps, parental controls, social media monitoring, and connected cameras—help you to go above and beyond to meet your subscribers’ unique needs and solve their pain points.
Keep the workforce local. Operating a competitive, high-quality broadband service requires a skilled workforce to maintain network operations daily. There are many different functions—from customer support to field technicians, network operations, sales, marketing, and finance—which create exciting career and skills training opportunities for community members. By hiring locally, your staff will be more invested in the success of your broadband project—and be champions for your subscriber base.

Your tribe is dependent on your broadband deployment succeeding long into the future. Adopting a “build it and they will come” strategy is fraught with risk—you must think beyond the network build and position yourself as a problem-solver for broadband users in the community today, and tomorrow.

Calix offers expert advice on how to operate your tribally-owned broadband sustainably—download our eBook “The Broadband Success Playbook for Tribes.”