Somerset, New Jersey – January 24, 2023 – VCTI, the broadband and network technology experts, today announced a 34 percent increase in customer base during the second half of 2023. The growth was driven by interest in the company’s Broadband Investment Optimization (BIO) offering and VCTI’s new AI-powered tool to assess aerial deployment viability, Pole IQ™. Given service providers’ continued focus on broadband expansion in the BEAD era, VCTI’s suite of automated intelligence solutions and services helps customers make better, more accurate investment decisions earlier in the planning process without relying on sending teams into the field. This enables service providers to expand their networks to serve more people at lower cost, with greater speed, intelligence, and accuracy.
To meet customer needs in this period of growth, VCTI also expanded its team by 30 percent in 2023, adding critical roles in operations, research and development, and sales. To drive product excellence and customer satisfaction, the company added network industry veteran Mike Alexander, formerly a senior vice president at Altice, as Executive Vice President of Customer Delivery and Quality. In this role, Mike focuses on solution quality, comprehensiveness, scalability, and customer success.
“The race to deliver Broadband for All remains a critical driver for service providers – and they are under immense pressure to accurately assess where to invest and how much it will cost. Failure to develop accurate plans can impact their ability to win and execute on BEAD and to grow and defend their market share,” explained VCTI CEO Raj Singh. “We’ve built solutions that use data, analytics, and the latest technologies to take the guesswork out of network build plans – and our customers recognize the value of our offerings and the importance of getting the network planning stage right.”
AI-Powered Intelligence
During Q3, VCTI introduced PoleIQ™, the company’s AI-powered automated utility pole assessment tool. The new offering geo-locates and delivers a high-level assessment of the usability of each utility pole on the proposed network, including the possibility of space and location for the installation of new wiring. The outputs enable service providers to quickly identify and quantify route possibilities, enhancing presales activity and focusing permitting and inspection resources on only the routes with the highest viability for aerial. The data enables construction partners to accelerate their tasks, potentially eliminating weeks, if not months, of the plan to design a construction process at a fraction of the cost.
PoleIQ was recently used by one national broadband service provider to accurately assess aerial deployment options and uncover more than $2M in savings for one deployment.
Broadband Investment Optimization Service
VCTI’s Broadband Investment Optimization Service (BIO) helps service providers reduce risk and strengthen ROI from infrastructure investments. Built on VCTI’s robust analytics platform, BIO synthesizes data from a myriad of sources to deliver more accurate insights into deployment options and cost, potential homes passed – including under and unserved – and competitive threats and opportunities. By enabling this level of insight early in the process, without reliance on field deployment, service providers can make investment decisions with greater speed, scale, accuracy, and confidence.