NextLight Enables Rapid Business Innovation With Calix SmartBiz, Building on Achievement As Colorado's First Gig City
NextLight—an award-winning, municipally-owned provider—is putting Longmont, Colorado, on the map as a strategic business hub with the rapid launch of SmartBiz. In fewer than six months, they surpassed small business signup goals by delivering secure, managed indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi to support more than 40 vendors at local events.
Calix, Inc. (NYSE:CALX) today announced that NextLight—a municipally-owned broadband service provider (BSP)—is leveraging Calix SmartBiz™ and the Calix Broadband Platform as their comprehensive small business service solution for Longmont, Colorado. NextLight, renowned for exceptional residential experiences—especially among gamers—is now helping support local economic growth with SmartBiz, a purpose-built managed service to enhance productivity, efficiency, and security for small businesses. Since SmartBiz is fully integrated with the Calix Platform, it is also fast to deploy and easy to manage for BSPs. With hands-on guidance from Calix Success, NextLight launched SmartBiz last October and smashed their first-year subscriber goal in fewer than six months, connecting businesses like coffee shops, law offices, and manufacturers, as well as nonprofits like houses of worship. The SmartBiz outdoor capabilities also enabled NextLight to partner with the Longmont Climbing Collective to host an international ice climbing competition—drawing global athletes, large crowds, and more than 40 local vendors, showcasing the power of connected small businesses.
"Longmont's small businesses have been asking for a straightforward, easy-to-manage Wi-Fi system, and this allows us to serve that need better than ever," said Valerie Dodd, executive director at NextLight. "With SmartBiz, we reached 80 percent of our new subscriber goal in just 60 days. This year, we aim to double that. SmartBiz also makes it easy for us to provide Wi-Fi at local events with dedicated networks for attendees, vendors, and even livestreams. It's better broadband for business, and that's good for the whole community."
As a Calix customer for 12 years, NextLight has led with broadband innovation since their 2014 launch of Colorado's first municipal gigabit network. By 2017, Longmont became the state's first "Gig City." Distinguished by their speed, affordability, and reliability, NextLight earned national awards, including PC Mag's Readers' Choice Award for Top Home ISP. In 2024, they expanded beyond Longmont's city limits for the first time, opening opportunities to serve new communities. As NextLight forges ahead with innovation, they continue to partner with Calix, exploring more managed services to enliven their community with new experiences.
During a recent collaboration with the Longmont Climbing Collective, NextLight leveraged SmartBiz and the expansive Unlimited Subscriber systems portfolio to deliver outdoor Wi-Fi at the UIAA 2025 World Ice Climbing Cup. Nearly 100 elite alpinists from 14 countries competed as thousands of spectators watched in person and online, resulting in:
- Thousands of secure point-of-sale transactions on a dedicated vendor network—supporting local restaurants, food trucks, coffee shops, and equipment sellers.
- Reliable Wi-Fi for vendors, extending hundreds of feet from Calix GigaSpire® and GigaPro® Wi-Fi systems.
- Branded guest Wi-Fi access for spectators via a custom login page on a separate network.
- High-quality YouTube livestream, delivering an uninterrupted experience from start to finish.
"What NextLight is doing for Longmont is remarkable," said Michael Weening, president and chief executive officer at Calix. "Not only are they powering exceptional residential and small business experiences, but they are also attracting global events. Imagine what could happen if communities across the country embraced this model, turning every town—no matter the size—into a hub for innovation, entrepreneurship, and community connection. At Calix, we are honored to support visionary leaders like NextLight who are building the blueprint for what community-driven broadband experiences can achieve."
SmartBiz was recently named a Customer Product of the Year winner by TMC for helping small businesses achieve measurable results and surpass customer expectations.
Discover how Calix SmartBiz helps boost productivity and strengthen small business communities, enabling BSPs to grow and lead in their markets.
About Calix
Calix, Inc. (NYSE:CALX)—Calix is an appliance-based platform, cloud and managed services company. Broadband experience providers leverage Calix's broadband platform, cloud and managed services to simplify their operations, subscriber engagement and services; innovate for their consumer, business and municipal subscribers; and grow their value for members, investors and the communities they serve.
Our end-to-end platform and managed services democratize the use of data - enabling our customers of any size to operate efficiently, acquire subscribers and deliver exceptional experiences. Calix is dedicated to driving continuous improvement in partnership with our growing ecosystem to support the transformation of our customers and their communities.
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