We use Calix 844e and have about 800 units in the field. We're on consumer connect for management and the replacement to that is support cloud which we need to migrate to still.
The short and sweet is they're the best routers we've ever used and we had over 200 cnpilot in the field before we went with Calix. Yes, Calix is used to fiber providers and thus has a different sales model and pricing. I've been driving then to work with smaller wisp's and ISP's to come up with a more attractive cloud price model. They're zero touch config for us and you do not need to enter provisioning url. They phone home automatically and they're tied to your account upon shipment to you. To provision them, our techs send the office the serial number and wifi password, we create the profile for customer in cloud portal with wifi ssid and password. Techs then plug router in at install and it downloads latest firmware, loads out default config, applies the chosen ssid and password and it's ready to go. All without the tech logging into the router at all. It's awesome! The 844e has the best 5ghz range and performance of any route I've tested with the 4x4 antenna system. They can be a pain to deal with until you actually become a customer and start ordering. The direct sales model leaves things open to price negotiation and them dropping the ball. Once we got through the pain of getting our foot in the door, it's all been good since then. If you have trouble getting through to Calix, let me know and I'll send your info to the VP of sales. He wants to know when their sales guys are dropping the ball. On Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 9:11 PM Chris Fabien <ch...@lakenetmi.com wrote: > Ken > > We evaluated about 8 routers a couple years ago wanting a solid managed > wifi offering. Calix GigaCenter 844E and SmartRG SR400AC were standouts > from the rest of the lot which included cambium, ready net, ignitenet and a > few consumer routers for comparison. Between the two the 844E had slightly > higher 5ghz speeds but the 2.4 range was better on SmartRG. > > Ultimately we decided smartrg was a better fit for us from how they priced > the management platform and also the Calix required a DHCP option to set a > provisioning URL which our powercode BMU was unable to provide. So that > broke the zero touch config. SmartRG routers phone home to a redirect > server and they maintain a list if what MACs were sold to who so your units > end up in your device manager system without any input from your network. > Works great. > > Overall we are happy with them. The Smartrg "home analytics" is TR161 > based where it logs wifi signal and usage info from each device in the > home. The Calix solution was more of a traffic analysis system to sort > usage by application. I am not sure if it ties that to a device or not. > Essentially when the customer calls up asking why was Netflix buffering > last night, SmartRG gives you the info to say, dads laptop with a poor wifi > signal was doing some kind of large transfer and hogging all the Wifi > airtime, while calix gives you the answer, some device was doing a windows > update and hogging all the bandwidth. At least that was my take on it 2 > years ago. > > I've also found the SmartRG people more accessible to work with. Calix had > a serious superiority complex attitude problem. That extended to their > pricing. Actually the 844E was very competitive but anything with GPON in > it they priced as if it were solid gold. It's like they do not realize GPON > is 15? Years old technology and should be a commodity priced thing like > gigabit ethernet switches. Calix GPON doesnt work any faster than my cheap > chinese GPON stuff although there are some bells and whistles you don't get > with ZTE. However my customers dont pay me extra for the GPON shelf having > bells and whistles. > > So, that's how we ended up with ZTE GPON and SmartRG router behind it. > Although SmartRG is supposedly releasing a SR900? Which has an SFP WAN port > with several options for wan interface ( GPON, AE BiDi, VDSL, gigE) > > Hope that's helpful info > Chris > > > On Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 9:25 PM Ken Hohhof <af...@kwisp.com wrote: > >> I should add that I talked to Mike Carpinelli at WISPAmerica in March >> 2016 and he has been returning my emails and had actually set up a time for >> a conference. But as I plowed through all the documentation on the Calix >> site, I couldn’t find any of the basic information most vendors give you, >> basically a getting started guide. What are you going to need, a >> step-by-step guide to hooking it all up, and screenshots of the GUI that >> your people will see, and that your customers will see. >> >> >> >> Furthermore, from the discussion here, it seems even WISPs that are using >> Calix products aren’t clear on Calix Cloud vs Consumer Connect, are they >> the same thing, are they different. It seems like one is too expensive, >> and the other has the secret sauce and without it you’re missing half the >> features. Or maybe they are different names for the same thing. Very >> confusing. >> >> >> >> Originally I thought I just needed to order a handful of devices for lab >> and beta testing, and that we’d learn through the hands-on experience. >> But I backed off when I found the documentation wasn’t telling me any of >> the things I needed to know. Clearly just getting some devices in my hands >> wasn’t going to resolve the knowledge gap, if I was finding the >> documentation totally unhelpful. >> >> >> >> >> >> *From:* AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> *On Behalf Of *ch...@wbmfg.com >> *Sent:* Monday, November 19, 2018 7:00 PM >> *To:* af@af.afmug.com >> *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Calix Gigacenters - how difficult to implement? >> >> >> >> Cory is about as official as it gets. >> >> >> >> *From:* Adam Moffett >> >> *Sent:* Monday, November 19, 2018 4:28 PM >> >> *To:* af@af.afmug.com >> >> *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Calix Gigacenters - how difficult to implement? >> >> >> >> I would love to see "official" answers. I'm looking at routers and >> managed WiFi for an FTTH build passing around 10,000 households. I haven't >> made any commitments yet, so I'd be willing to talk about Calix. >> >> On 11/19/2018 6:13 PM, ch...@wbmfg.com wrote: >> >> Actually this is the beginning. >> >> >> >> *From:* Ken Hohhof >> >> *Sent:* Friday, November 16, 2018 8:50 AM >> >> *To:* 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' >> >> *Subject:* [AFMUG] Calix Gigacenters - how difficult to implement? >> >> >> >> For those of you who’ve successfully deployed Calix: >> >> >> >> I’ve been wanting to do something with the 844E and 804 since WISPAmerica >> 2.5 years ago, but I feel like I’m at the starting line of a marathon with >> my feet stuck in buckets full of concrete. >> >> >> >> Calix has tons of documentation, and after reading it, I feel about 1% >> smarter. I don’t know what the end user or a tech sees as an interface for >> analytics and troubleshooting and tweaking settings. I don’t know if you >> can do a standalone implementation with just the Calix Cloud and some >> Gigacenters and Mesh units, I get the impression you need to mess with >> APIs and tie into all sorts of operations systems that we don’t have. I’m >> not even clear on whether we need to set up some kind of on-network TR-069 >> server, or if that’s all a cloud service hosted by Calix. >> >> >> >> Is the Calix stuff relatively straightforward to use, on a par with >> Cambium cnPilot and cnMaestro Cloud? And maybe Calix documentation is just >> very confusing or I’m being stupid? Or are these things pretty complicated >> to incorporate into a WISP network and get all the advantages of the >> devices and cloud management? >> >> >> >> I’m trying to decide whether to keep struggling and get more help from >> Calix, or give up. >> ------------------------------ >> >> -- >> AF mailing list >> AF@af.afmug.com >> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> -- >> AF mailing list >> AF@af.afmug.com >> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com >> -- >> AF mailing list >> AF@af.afmug.com >> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com >> > -- > AF mailing list > AF@af.afmug.com > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com >
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