'Ello, ello' - how one US communications services firm is connecting to an AI-enabled future for Mid-west communities

These days Communication Services Providers (CSPs) seem to be firefighting to make the most of a barrage of  innovation, whether it be the consolidation of physical delivery systems, agentic and AI native networks, or AI-driven workflow transformation. But one US Midwest-based CSP, ALLO Communications believes it is well-positioned for a fast moving AI-connected future.

Founded in 2002 as a fiber business, ALLO Communications spans regions across Nebraska, Colorado, Arizona, Kansas and Missouri,  focusing on Tier 2 and Tier 3 US cities which have populations of 5,000 people up to around 300,000, providing full communications services for businesses and communities. It generally builds communications for the whole community. Its goal is to have a 60% market share, blended over business, residential and consumer in its regions.

Founder and CEO Brad Moline says:

The regions that we focus on are what people sometimes call ‘flyover’ areas. They're often under-served, and under-recognized, however they need world class communications, just like anyone else, anywhere else. And actually Nebraska, which is very rural, very agricultural, is now ranked in the top five most connected states in the country. My view is, why not make it world class, wherever you live.

He adds:

We believe in offering a deep product stack, and that means internet hosted, Wi Fi, outdoor Wi Fi, voice services, cyber services, and AI services, so people can come to us to be the solution provider, make one decision and and get world class and cost efficiency at the same time there.

It is one of the early adopters of cloud platform supplier Calix’s recently announced AI-native offering for CPSs, Calix One. The pitch for Calix One is that it puts cloud software, AI‑powered agents, and managed services into a single, unified platform, thus enabling ALLO to take advantage of any fast moving AI developments, and continue to expand its business,, although Moline doesn’t see the firm as a pioneer in AI:

It’s not necessarily early adoption. We've been talking about different forms of AI, and been working on pro-active troubleshooting, and Machine Learning, and metrics that we could receive from the Calix platform pretty intensely for five years.

The firm has been working with Calix for the last 16 years but it was ten years ago that ALLO decided to work exclusively with the supplier. Moline recalls  the company made the decision because Calix offered it a vision of how the future was going to play out:

I'd heard it speak for five or six years about this vision and what things were going to look like in the future. I looked at the competitive environment. We tested almost everything. I said, They're not there yet, but I think Calix sees the future and we will leapfrog everyone else’.

The Calix One platform allows ALLO to more effectively harvest data, so it can be increasingly pro-active, rather than waiting until problems happen. Moline testifies:

Our up times, our knowledge of our network, our speeds and the quality of services are all on the table. Ten years ago, we used our customers as network probes, and it was only when they called in and said they were having a problem, we learned about it. Today we're doing pro-active troubleshooting using the data. I can harvest this information.

We have had that knowledge for a while, but now we can put it in a usable format. We can go do our things, but we can also tell if electronics are getting to the end of life. We can also tell if a customer has devices that need software upgrades, those types of things make the experience for the customer exceptional.”

Moline thinks the close relationship with Calix allows for natural evolution, so when Calix moved to Google Cloud, ALLO followed:

It just made sense. If you treat someone as just a vendor, you're never going to collaborate. We treat Calix as a stakeholder and as stakeholders, we co-develop things. Calix has much more futuristic thoughts. We throw some real concepts that aren't, maybe as fully-baked as they could be, and then Calix takes them and says, ‘Hey, this is how we see it’.

Opportunity knocks

Currently the main challenge for ALLO is making the most of the opportunities that AI offers according to Moline. The company is in the process of upgrading its operational support systems, the apps that are available to its customers, and the product set that now includes AI, he says:

When most people talk about AI, they are talking about cost savings and knowledge from their systems and the like. I spend most of my time thinking about, ‘What would a family agent look like? What would an agent do for our small businesses? How would that tie into our voice services and our internet services?’.

That’s paying off. he suggests:

In just a year, how some of these AI engines and models agents are performing is phenomenally different. The rate of change is just enormous, and that's why you have to partner with somebody like Calix. It’s always going to be looking at tomorrow or the next decade or the next several years, and if you don't, you're going to miss the opportunity.

Communications should be a professional utility that customers don’t have to think about, argues Moline, where they can think about what they're going to do, not what their limitations are.

We're combining fiber, and Calix's AI-based platform technologies to leapfrog and give people an exceptional experience as good as anywhere in the world. Even though we're only two decades old, ALLO is a company that's been designed around change. It's continuous change, and continuous upgrades. I think we're well positioned for the future. [This] is going to enable us to be a company that's ready for the next 30-50 years.