ALLO Communications Launches Bark Social Media Monitoring in Days To Support Parents in 36 Communities via the Calix Platform

SAN JOSE, CA—June 6, 2023—Calix, Inc. (NYSE: CALX) today announced that longtime customer ALLO Communications (ALLO) is leveraging the end-to-end Calix platform to rapidly deploy Bark, an AI-enabled social media monitoring managed service. ALLO is scaling Bark across the 36 communities they serve in Nebraska, Colorado, and Arizona.

By launching Bark, ALLO is giving thousands of parents and caregivers an immediate and impactful tool to address the documented harm social media poses to children’s mental health. Because Bark is pre-integrated for Revenue EDGE™ on the full Calix platform, the ALLO team quickly launched the solution in days. Only the unique capabilities of the Calix cloud and software platform enable broadband service providers (BSPs) to lead the way in creating safer internet experiences at scale—while optimizing operational expense (OPEX)—and protecting the most vulnerable members of their communities.

“ALLO proudly makes investments to serve our communities and transform them into better places to live, work, and play,” said Brad Moline, president and chief executive officer at ALLO. “We choose to offer Bark to work closely with parents and schools in doing everything possible to help children thrive in a highly digital world. Because Bark is pre-integrated with the Calix platform, we launched it in days as a marketing initiative with almost zero engineering involvement. Custom integration would have taken months. Bark is a great step forward for the communities and families we serve.”

Calix Customer Success Services (Customer Success) worked with ALLO to accelerate time to market on their Bark launch and rollout. Working closely with their Customer Success specialist, ALLO quickly prepared to amplify the value of Bark with tailored outreach to subscribers and schools.

Formed in partnership with award-winning online safety leader Bark Technologies, the Bark managed service monitors text messages, email, and more than 30 of the most popular apps and social media platforms. This eliminates the need for parents to comb through messages and preserves children’s privacy. Bark sends parents and guardians alerts with expert recommendations from child psychologists so they can immediately and effectively address issues.

Calix-partnered BSPs are adopting Bark to become a first line of defense for child online safety, scaling this critical solution to protect even more families—at home, school, and virtually everywhere. With Bark on the Calix platform, customers like ALLO can:

• Launch to subscribers in a matter of days or weeks. Because Bark is a pre-integrated managed service for Revenue EDGE, it can be turned up in days and rolled out in as few as three weeks. Every BSP launching Bark is assigned a Customer Success specialist to kick off an engagement with Smart Start for Managed Services. Together, they align every function of the broadband business—from marketing to operations to customer support—to easily support Bark with their existing platform and workflows.
  
• Leverage marketing resources to accelerate and simplify go-to-market. With the award-winning Calix Market Activation program and Electronic Content Builder, BSPs have customizable materials to power Bark marketing campaigns, further accelerating time to market. Additionally, Calix Marketing Cloud (Marketing Cloud) makes it easy to identify households that would benefit most from Bark. Marketing Cloud integrations with Mailchimp and Facebook can also help BSP marketing teams efficiently and effectively educate parents about the value of Bark.
  
• Ramp adoption by connecting with local schools. Customer Success specialists can work with BSPs to scale their Bark offering by connecting with local institutions to alert families of the new tools available to them. To optimize outreach to schools, BSPs can also leverage playbooks developed by experts in
  the Calix Community.

“Simplicity, innovation, and time to market are why we are partnered with Calix on Bark, SmartTown™ (managed community Wi-Fi), SmartBiz™ (small business productivity), and the other differentiated managed services we offer subscribers,” said Moline. “Their rapid pace of innovation and unique ability to offer us new partnerships continues to accelerate as their platform and ecosystem expand. We are excited about the future of our region and the value we can continue to deliver to our communities with Calix at our side.”

“ALLO has a clear vision to improve the communities they serve,” said Michael Weening, president and chief executive officer at Calix. “It can be overwhelming for parents to figure out the best way to help their children deal with the damaging aspects of social media, including cyberbullying and online predation. With the Calix platform, ALLO launched the Bark managed service in days, with almost no investment, to support parents in all 36 communities they serve. This is the power of the Calix platform in action—and why we invested 12 years and $1.2 billion to develop it, along with our dedicated Customer Success army. We are proud to support ALLO as they fill this critical gap for parents.”  

To learn more about Bark on the Calix platform, watch the webinar replay, “Will Your Broadband Business Protect Your Most Vulnerable Subscribers?” and schedule a Bark consultation.

About Calix
This press release contains forward-looking statements that are based upon management’s current expectations and are inherently uncertain. Forward-looking statements are based upon information available to us as of the date of this release, and we assume no obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking statement to reflect any event or circumstance after the date of this release, except as required by law. Actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from current expectations based on risks and uncertainties affecting Calix’s business. The reader is cautioned not to rely on the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. Additional information on potential factors that could affect Calix’s results and other risks and uncertainties are detailed in its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC and available at www.sec.gov.

Calix and the Calix logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Calix and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Calix’s trademarks can be found at https://www.calix.com/pages/trademarks.html. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.