ITS Fiber Honored with Second Calix Innovation Award

Calix recognizes six broadband service providers
for outstanding achievements at ConneXions Event in Las Vegas

October 31, 2018
News Release

LAS VEGAS – October 31, 2018 – Calix, Inc. (NYSE: CALX) today announced the winners of the 2018 Calix Innovation Awards. Local Treasure Coast firm, ITS Fiber was presented with The Calix Innovation Award for Innovations in Subscriber Experience, their second Innovation Award from the leading global communications software provider, Calix. ITS Fiber was honored in 2013 with an Innovation in Business Transformation Award from Calix for their launch of highly certified commercial data center in Indiantown, Florida.

ITS Fiber is among six other Calix Innovation Awards winners, who represent broadband leaders from three different countries. All were honored at the sold-out Calix ConneXions Innovation and User Conference earlier this week. Now in their eighth year, the Calix Innovation Awards recognize Calix customers who demonstrated outstanding creativity to deploy best-in-class services over the last 12 months. The awards showcase innovation in the use of cloud and software platforms, systems, and services to transform businesses models, networks, and the subscriber experience.

“Our partnership with Calix has been at the heart of our thriving business for many years, and it is an honor to be recognized as one of the 2018 Calix Innovation Award winners,” said Jeff Leslie, president and CEO of ITS Fiber. “Through our deployments of Calix Support Cloud, the Calix GigaCenter routers, and 804Mesh Wi-Fi units, our Whole Home Wi-Fi service has taken off, not only driving new service revenues, but also enabling a differentiated subscriber experience in the home. As we look ahead to Calix Smart Home and Business, we can’t wait to take that service to the next level and cement our place as the smart home tech experts for our subscribers.”

The 2018 Calix Innovation Award winners for Innovations in Subscriber Experience are:

• ALLO Communications
• ITS Fiber
•  Nex-Tech

The 2018 Calix Innovation Award winners for Innovations in Next Generation Networks are:

• CityFibre
• Gibson Connect
• HDC

About Calix

Calix, Inc. (NYSE: CALX) – Innovative communications service providers rely on Calix platforms to help them master and monetize the complex infrastructure between their subscribers and the cloud. Calix is the leading global provider of the cloud and software platforms, systems, and services required to deliver the unified access network and smart premises of tomorrow. Their platforms and services help customers build next generation networks by embracing a DevOps operating model, optimize the subscriber experience by leveraging big data analytics and turn the complexity of the smart home and business into new revenue streams.

ITS Hosts Community Meetings About Fiber Network Expansion

In late January 2019, ITS Fiber hosted two community meetings with the Indiantown residents from “Springhaven” and “Clementsville” areas to discuss and propose various options for bringing fiber-optic services to their communities.

These were two areas (among a couple others in our service territory) where ITS Fiber was not able to complete construction in our initial fiber overbuild done in 2008-2011.

CEO, Jeff Leslie, spoke to the residents at each meeting and outlined the background of why the fiber overbuild was not completed a few years ago. He explained that due to federal government regulatory changes in 2012, the government support we were relying on was reduced and the certainty of its continuance was placed in doubt. Accordingly, ITS was forced to discontinue our construction of fiber in outlying areas of Indiantown causing us to leave some customers with their existing Internet solution.

Mr. Leslie then commented that a new initiative was announced in December 2018 by the FCC to restore financial support that would allow ITS to upgrade its DSL (copper) network to provide broadband speeds up to 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up to qualified areas over the next few years. He further noted that the USDA just announced a plan to make a limited amount of grant funds available to qualified rural broadband providers (like ITS Fiber) to be used for potential network upgrades. Although we are uncertain if ITS will be able to qualify, we’re planning to apply for those grant funds in May of 2019. We do not know, however, when the USDA will notify the grant winners of their status.

In the interim, ITS Fiber plans to continue to meet with our local communities who are not yet on fiber services to identify their interest in receiving fiber services or if they will be content with an upgraded 25/3 Mbps DSL solution. The January meetings with Springhaven and Clementsville gave us a lot of useful input and the majority of those residents who attended, chose to move forward with a fiber services solution if their communities can each get 50% of residents to agree to the fiber upgrade and cost-sharing plan presented by ITS.

Cesar Garcia joins ITS Fiber as Systems Administrator in the IT Department

Cesar has over 20 year experience in IT with 15 years of them being with Medco Health Solutions/Liberty Medical in Port Saint Lucie.

Cesar fulfilled many Information Technology roles during those 15 years including Helpdesk Support, Telecom Support, IT Systems Support and more.

Cesar has a broad knowledge of systems and will be a valuable contributor to the ITS team.  - July 2019

5th Annual VIP Customer Luncheon

ITS Fiber hosted their 5th annual Customer Appreciation Holidays Lunch to say "thank you" to business customers in a festive holiday setting.

The annual ITS Fiber Customer Holiday Luncheon was a huge success again this year at The Twisted Tuna on December 6th.

The festive setting had a nautical holiday theme and celebrated ITS Fiber customers as "treasures". There was a delicious lunch buffet, games, prizes and great conversation.

Additionally, our business customers all had a chance to introduce themselves and tell the group a little about their business. Interestingly, instead of taking that opportunity to promote what they do, many of them chose to speak about how happy they were with their ITS Fiber services and our employees!  We were very humble as it was all very unexpected.

CEO, Jeff Leslie also briefly introduced some of the new features and services ITS has in store for 2019.

We are so appreciative of our customers for their loyal support in 2018 and are looking forward to a spectacular New Year!

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Mike Gonzalez - ITS Fiber Sales Associate

Dances with the Martin Stars 2018

 

Mike recently competed as one of seven contestants at the Dancing with the Martin Stars for 2018 at the Lyric Theatre in downtown Stuart.

Dancing with the Martin Stars is an annual fundraising event for The Martin County Healthy Start Coalition to help support and provide education to pregnant women and infants.

 

Each of the contestant are also competing to raise the most money for cause. The results from their individual fundraising efforts will be combined with their dance scores to determine the overall winner.

 

Mike challenged himself to stand out to be Noticeably Better from the other contestants by combining 3 different dance styles, (the Salsa, Merengue, and the Cha Cha Cha) into one dance routine.  Mike and his dance partner, Jill Bogacik, were the only contestants to showcase more than one dance style in a single number.  Their efforts paid off.  He "wowed" the crowd and the judges with his personality and style, earning him a score of 29 out of 30 in the dance competition.

 

Mike was able to raise $15,002 through his own fundraising efforts. The 2018 combined team raised over $159,000 for the babies and families of Martin County Healthy Start Coalition, Inc.

 

Click here to see Mike's performance.