From Worst to Best in 18 Months: City of Pharr Leverages Calix Platform To Dramatically Transform Internet Access and Residents’ Lives While Opening Economic Opportunities

SAN JOSE, CA—June 29, 2023—Calix, Inc. (NYSE: CALX) today announced that the City of Pharr, Texas, is leveraging Calix innovation to rapidly transform their community with fiber broadband and value-added managed services. By doing so, they are creating unprecedented opportunities for students, residents, and small businesses to thrive while managing their network and business functions at the lowest possible operational expense.

The City of Pharr’s investment in the end-to-end Calix broadband platform—Intelligent Access EDGE™, Revenue EDGE™, and Calix Cloud®—has made it possible to quickly deliver these exceptional broadband experiences to residents. Their broadband service, known as TeamPharr.Net, is a success playbook other municipalities and broadband service providers (BSPs) can follow to positively impact millions of lives in the South Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Backed by Calix innovation and its award-winning customer success team, the City of Pharr built 80 percent of their high-speed municipal broadband network and launched their managed Wi-Fi service in just 18 months. Before the pandemic, they were ranked as the worst-connected city of their size, with 59.7 percent of households lacking any form of connectivity. Earlier this year, the City of Pharr was recognized as having the most-transformative smart project of the year by the Smart 50 Awards program. They also won the Community Economic Development Award from the Texas Economic Development Council and continue to receive industry accolades for delivering telecommunications that benefit their residents.

With Revenue EDGE on the Calix platform, the City of Pharr is rapidly deploying critical managed Wi-Fi services to extend beyond basic internet connectivity and fulfill a wide-ranging vision to grow lasting, generational value in the region. To continue to deliver value for their residents, TeamPharr.Net introduced and is expanding on multiple opportunities:

• The city will leverage federal grants from the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) to partner with local school districts and provide thousands of qualified students with credit to cover the full cost of TeamPharr.Net internet service.
• Nearly 99 percent of residential subscribers use the TeamPharr.Net-branded version of the Calix CommandIQ® mobile app—offered in English and Spanish to improve accessibility for their predominantly Hispanic community.
• Managed services like ProtectIQ® (home network cybersecurity) and ExperienceIQ® (advanced parental Wi-Fi controls) enable the city to deliver safer online experiences for their family-oriented community. The city is considering new managed services like Bark social media monitoring (for in and out of the home) and Calix SmartTown™ (community-wide Wi-Fi).
• TeamPharr.Net is also exploring Calix SmartBiz™ (small business productivity solution) to expand managed services into the commercial sector.

Along with their branded mobile app, TeamPharr.Net provides every subscriber with Calix GigaSpire® BLAST Wi-Fi 6-enabled systems. They also deployed Calix Support Cloud and Calix Operations Cloud to ensure seamless customer support and proactive resolution of any network issues—even before subscribers may be aware of them.

“We were facing a huge digital divide and we needed to level the playing field or risk being left behind,” said the City of Pharr’s mayor, Dr. Ambrosio Hernandez. “The most sustainable solution was for us to take on broadband as a utility. That has allowed us to control the quality, reliability, and affordability of Wi-Fi services for residents. Thanks to the expertise, support, and training provided by Calix, we’re creating a happy, connected community with enhanced social and economic opportunities. We’re excited to continue to work with Calix to provide 100 percent connectivity and exceptional broadband experiences to every resident and business within the City of Pharr.”

Working with Calix Premier Customer Success, the City of Pharr will use Calix Marketing Cloud to engage with residential and business subscribers to speed up subscriber acquisition. They also leverage go-to-market tools in the award-winning Calix Market Activation program to dramatically accelerate broadband adoption.

“The City of Pharr is a model of success for all towns serving the enormous population across the Rio Grande Valley and an excellent example of the democratizing power of the Calix broadband platform,” said Matt Collins, chief commercial operations officer at Calix. “They show how a BSP can go beyond essential connectivity and provide managed services to help students, parents, small business owners, and more. With their investment in our platform, the City of Pharr will continue to grow value in their communities for generations.” 

Watch this video to learn more about “How the City of Pharr Transformed from Worst Connected to Award-Winning.”

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