Tombigbee Fiber Prioritizes Protecting Children From Social Media Dangers, Launching Bark in 2 Weeks via the Calix Broadband Platform

Calix, Inc. (NYSE: CALX) today announced that Tombigbee Fiber, LLC (Tombigbee) continues to evolve as an innovative managed service provider by launching AI-enabled social media monitoring tool, Bark, to their Mississippi community. Because Bark is an integrated solution on the Calix broadband platform, Tombigbee deployed it in just two weeks. The award-winning offering provides parents and guardians with real-time alerts about online dangers such as cyberbullying and child predation—whether children are at home or on the go. Adults can address issues immediately, without combing through every online interaction, which also ensures children’s privacy.

Through their partnership with Calix, Tombigbee has created a winning playbook to continuously deploy managed services that grow value for their community. This has allowed them to seamlessly deliver world-class broadband experiences in northern Mississippi. To gain deep insights into subscriber needs, Tombigbee leverages Calix Business Insights Services. Earlier this year, Tombigbee worked with their Calix business intelligence analyst to run a Net Promoter Score℠ (NPS®) survey that resulted in an incredible 91 out of 100—far exceeding typical scores for telecommunications companies.

Following the survey, Tombigbee engaged the Business Insights Services team to analyze the NPS survey results and establish a focus group to uncover more feedback. The focus group is a new offering from Business Insights Services to help Calix customers derive insights on subscriber preferences and implement a success plan to improve their experiences.

One of the many findings uncovered by the Tombigbee focus group indicated that protecting children is a priority among members and subscribers. While Mississippi declared cyberbullying a felony 13 years ago, online dangers remain a persistent threat. Bark, which Calix added in 2022 to its growing portfolio of managed services available for the Calix Revenue EDGE™ solution, is an ideal way for Tombigbee to continue a nearly century-long tradition of supporting their historically underserved market.

“We’ve been in our community for 90 years—our subscribers and members are friends, family, and neighbors,” said Scott Hendrix, chief executive officer of Tombigbee Fiber and Tombigbee Electric Power Association. “It was an easy decision to deploy Bark; it is another opportunity to help protect our children. We know from working with Business Insights Services that security-focused managed services are especially valued by our members and subscribers, so we continue to prioritize services that improve their safety. If we can help protect even one young person’s life by offering Bark, it’s worth it. With the Calix broadband platform, it’s easy for us to launch new managed services in a matter of weeks. This enables us to seamlessly curate broadband experiences that transform life in once-underserved communities. Soon, we will light up fully connected smart towns as we continue contributing to a bright future for the region.”

To promote Bark to subscribers, Tombigbee leverages Calix Marketing Cloud to engage with households that use ExperienceIQ® (advanced parental controls) and would likely be interested in Bark. They also accelerated the launch of Bark to their community by leveraging pre-made, customizable creative assets from the award-winning Calix Market Activation program. This enables Tombigbee to run multichannel marketing campaigns quickly and easily across email, social media, and out-of-home to educate parents about the benefits of Bark. Further, since a Calix GigaSpire® BLAST is not required to use Bark, Tombigbee is marketing Bark to families outside of their network to expand their reach and potentially win new customers.

Bark is only the latest managed service that Tombigbee introduced to deliver more security and improve life in their community. Last summer, they launched cybersecurity and advanced Wi-Fi controls at no extra cost to their subscribers and members.

Tombigbee plans to continue to lead the way as an innovative managed service provider. Plans include launching Calix SmartTown™ community-wide Wi-Fi to create fully smart towns across Mississippi—starting with Mantachie in Itawamba County.

“It is inspiring to see Scott and his team at Tombigbee prioritize children’s safety in their community while driving growth that is challenging legacy competition,” said Michael Weening, president and chief executive officer at Calix. “Their team is living their mission of making the community they serve a better place. The Calix broadband platform made it simple for Tombigbee to launch Bark, freeing their team members to work with local parent-teacher associations, teachers, and schools to educate and support parents as they help children deal with the complexity of social media, cyberbullying, and mental health. It is incredibly powerful to see Tombigbee shoulder to shoulder with parents working together to help local children succeed. This is the epitome of community values.”

Deploy Bark on the Calix broadband platform in weeks to protect children from online dangers.

About Calix

Calix, Inc. (NYSE: CALX)—Broadband service providers of all sizes leverage the Calix platform and teams to simplify their business and excite their subscribers to grow the value of their business and for their communities for generations. The democratizing power of the platform and portfolio of managed services enables them to operate efficiently, acquire subscribers, and deliver exceptional experiences. Calix is dedicated to driving continuous improvement in partnership with our growing ecosystem to support the transformation of our customers and their communities.

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.

Net Promoter®, NPS®, NPS Prism®, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter Score℠ and Net Promoter System℠ are service marks of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.

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