How Did MidSouth Fiber Transform Network Outage Management? A Key Integration

MidSouth Fiber (MidSouth), a leading fiber-to-the-home broadband service provider (BSP), faced a familiar industry challenge: managing network outages effectively. Before a recent technological upgrade, MidSouth had to rely on customer calls to identify service disruptions—leading to higher call center volumes, slower response times, and customer frustrations.
 

However, with the introduction of a new integration between GLDS’ BroadHub customer management system and Calix Operations Cloud, MidSouth has transformed how they manage outages.

Limitations of Reactive Outage Management

MidSouth struggled with the limitations of reactive outage management. When an outage occurred, the first indication often came from customers reporting the disruption. This resulted in delayed responses and overwhelmed support teams, as numerous subscribers flooded the call center simultaneously.
 

For a company with a growing customer base, this created operational strains and damaged customer satisfaction, as subscribers felt left in the dark during outages. MidSouth needed a more proactive way to reduce reliance on customer-initiated reports and improve service reliability.

Proactive Communication Via GLDS and Calix Integration

The collaboration between GLDS and Calix introduced a real-time outage detection and notification system that transformed MidSouth’s operations. By integrating proactive outage management into GLDS’ BroadHub system, MidSouth can detect network disruptions the moment they occur using machine-to-machine communication via webhooks. This provides immediate insights into service disruptions, allowing the BSP to notify internal teams and affected customers instantly.
 

A standout feature of the integration is the SMS alert system. Subscribers who opt-in receive real-time updates during outages, reducing their need to contact support. This proactive communication improved transparency and significantly lowered the number of customer-initiated calls—which, in turn, eased the strain on MidSouth’s call center.

Data-Driven Success

The effectiveness of the integration was tested during a recent outage that impacted 99 subscribers. The results demonstrated how critical proactive communication is for reducing customer frustration and call volumes. For subscribers who had SMS alerts enabled:

• Only 4 percent called the support center during the outage.
  
  
• 72 percent of these subscribers had previously generated support tickets, showing a tendency toward proactive support.

In stark contrast, subscribers without SMS alerts experienced the outage very differently.

• 33 percent of SMS-disabled subscribers called the support center, a significant increase over their SMS-enabled counterparts.
  
  
• 35 percent of these subscribers had never generated a support ticket, indicating that proactive communication could have further reduced inbound calls.

Proactive Communication Improves Satisfaction

MidSouth’s experience with the GLDS-Calix outage integration highlights the tremendous value of proactive communication in customer service. Only 4 percent of SMS-enabled subscribers contacted support compared to 33 percent without SMS alerts, indicating that informing customers in real-time is key to reducing operational strain and boosting satisfaction.
 

The ability to detect and communicate outages in real time has improved the customer experience and made MidSouth’s operations far more efficient. “This integration is transforming how we handle outages, and the numbers speak for themselves,” said Luke Hofferber, Technical Project Coordinator at MidSouth Fiber.
 

The success of this integration positions MidSouth to continue improving its services and ensure higher reliability and customer satisfaction moving forward. With the ability to stay ahead of network issues, MidSouth is setting a new standard for BSPs committed to exceptional service.
 

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About GLDS

GLDS’ customer management, billing, and service delivery ecosystem is built on decades of broadband experience. From start-ups to scaled deployments, GLDS solutions are built for fiber and have been launched at more than 875 operators in 50 states and 48 countries. Flexible interfaces and dozens of proven integrations mean quicker time to market and no headaches. GLDS brings experience you can trust at budget-friendly prices. Learn more at www.glds.com.