Rural ISP Grayshott Gigabit Boosts Broadband Rollout with Calix

Grayshott Gigabit, which is building a new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network in rural parts of East Hampshire, the Surrey Hills and surrounding areas, has reported lowering their costs, improving performance and passing the savings on to their customers after adopting Calix’s platform.

The operator, which adopts more of a demand-led approach and is harnessing the Government’s Gigabit Voucher scheme (i.e. at least 30% of households per area need to pre-register for a build to take place), is busy deploying across homes and business in several locations, such as around the Grayshott, Hindhead and Beacon Hill communities.

Grayshott Gigabit has been using the Calix Intelligent Access EDGE solution to build their network since it was first launched, but last year also saw them adopt Calix’s GigaSpire BLAST solution (i.e. Wi-Fi 6 capable consumer routers and related systems), as well as Calix Revenue EDGE (i.e. subscriber solutions like anti-malware, parental controls and connection monitoring etc.) and Calix Cloud (managing customer support, network operations, and installation teams etc.).

As a result of all this, Grayshott claims to have reduced field OPEX by 90% (i.e. reduced support calls and truck rolls), while they’ve also been able to solve subscriber / support issues 92% faster and the savings from all this have apparently been passed on to their customers. But it’s worth noting that Grayshott is a very new operator, and thus their base of comparison for these improvements will be fairly limited.

Mashood Ahmad, Founder and MD at Grayshott Gigabit, said:

“The communities of Grayshott and Hindhead are not just our subscribers, they are rural communities that were left behind due to the digital divide and lack of fibre rollout from the mainstream providers. Coupled with little to no 4G mobile coverage, the community suffered from lack of connectivity … By leveraging the Calix platform, we know we are bringing them the very best. We chose Calix specifically because they could simplify this entire community broadband solution.”

Residential customers of the service typically pay from £29 per month – plus a £69 one-off activation charge – for a 100Mbps (symmetric) package on a 24-month term (inc. Wi-Fi 6 router), which rises to £44 for 800Mbps. A cheap £20 social tariff also exists for speeds of 100Mbps on a 12-month term with free activation.