BEAD Funding Drives Growth for VCTI
Somerset, New Jersey – August 2, 2023 – As BEAD funding moves broadband expansion activity in North America into overdrive, VCTI, the broadband and network technology experts, today announced several milestones during the first half of 2023. Driven by interest in the company’s Broadband Investment Optimization (BIO) offering, VCTI increased the value of its customer contracts by more than 100 percent over the same period in 2022. The increase was largely the result of expanded scopes of work with existing service provider customers as they prepared for BEAD allocations to be announced.
In addition, the company’s customer base overall has grown almost 20% over the first half of the year. Today, four of the ten largest service providers in the United States, along with many Tier 2 and smaller providers, have chosen VCTI as their broadband expansion partner.
“In the race to expand service to unserved and underserved homes, service providers must make smart decisions about where to invest – and they have very little room for error. Decisions made today will impact their ability to grow and defend their market share for years to come,” explained VCTI CEO Raj Singh. “Our customers recognize the unique value of the in-depth, accurate plans and analytics provided by our BIO offering and the value we deliver in helping to drive ROI and subscriber growth. As a result of our customer’s confidence in our team, we have grown quite quickly, doubling our office space at our software development center in India and expanding our team as we help our customers to expand their market share.”
Adding Experience and Expertise
In Q1, VCTI announced the appointment of visionary telecom executive Scott Widham to the company’s Board of Directors. Widham is Chairman of Houston-area fiber broadband provider Ezee Fiber and has served as chief executive at a number of regional and vertical service providers, including Alpheus Communications, Cobridge Communications, and Broadwing Communications. He brings extensive experience in the broadband sector, with a deep understanding of service provider pain points, and the intricacies of funding and planning market expansion strategies.
VCTI also continues to add experience and expertise to its fast-growing software development team. In July, VCTI was honored with a prestigious Workplace Excellence Award for Tech Culture, given annually by TMCnet. VCTI was chosen for its “Employee-First” approach to employee perks and work-life balance, offering a host of benefits, including: opportunities for skill enhancement and training programs across all organizational levels, with a particular focus on supporting women in their workforce, job rotation, and mentorship programs; flexible work-from-home policies; generous paid time off and comp time policies; and extended health insurance.
Driving Broadband Expansion
As part of the company’s focus on supporting broadband expansion and helping service providers to identify, access, and provide services to underserved households, VCTI joined the Fiber Broadband Association during the first half of 2023.
The Fiber Broadband Association is the largest and only trade association that represents the complete fiber ecosystem of service providers, manufacturers, industry experts, and deployment specialists dedicated to the advancement of fiber broadband deployment and the pursuit of a world where communications are limitless, advancing quality of life and digital equity anywhere and everywhere. VCTI will contribute key learnings from its work with US service providers at national and regional FBA events and through participation in FBA’s committees and working groups.
VCTI also joined the N50 Project to help bring access to affordable broadband to communities around the world. The N50 Project, which stands for the Next 50 Percent, aims to expand digital adoption and opportunities to underserved communities worldwide. VCTI joins other leading technology companies in supporting the mission and will contribute its experience helping service providers to submit compelling proposals for over $1B in digital divide grant opportunities.
In March, VCTI CEO Raj Singh was invited to discuss the critical data analytics and insights needed to develop a strong fiber deployment strategy at the inaugural Connected America conference in a panel discussion, “The Path to Full Fiber.”