We recently sponsored an NTCA webinar with our client partner ETC Communications, featuring Jason Smith, COO of ETC and our COO and co-founder, Rick Perkins. I’m sharing the conversation highlights, but watch the replay here. There’s so much great insight and advice on outage management best practices.
About ETC Communications
ETC Communications is a family-owned broadband provider headquartered in Ellijay, Georgia, employing 160 people. A traditional telephone company and NTCA member founded in 1903, the company now serves 40,000 internet subscribers and a network spanning 7,000 miles across Georgia and Tennessee. ETC operates both HFC and fiber infrastructure and is actively transitioning to all-fiber builds using Calix equipment.
The Challenge: Customer Notifications During Outages
ETC faced a common but critical challenge: when outages occurred—planned or unplanned—the first notice often came from customers calling the support line. Look, we’ve all been there. I’ve been in sales for 20 years, and sometimes, customer service or sales are the first to hear about “technical challenges,” but that’s not the ideal scenario.
In ETC’s case, many times, customer service reps didn’t have real-time visibility into what was happening. This created internal friction, information gaps, and poor customer experience during already frustrating network events. ETC was looking for a complete, vendor-neutral solution that offered 100% automation.
Jason Smith, Chief Operating Officer at ETC, explained:
“At times, there was confusion when outages happened. Reps were upset with our network folks because they weren’t able to communicate what was going on. They were actually working on resolving an issue, and they weren’t the best at notifying everybody what they were doing. So, the buy-in was easy for us.”
Why ETC Launched OutageIQ
In reviewing outage management solutions, ETC prioritized three goals:
- Proactive Customer Communication – Notify subscribers automatically when service disruptions occur.
- Company-Wide Visibility – Give every team—from tech support to dispatch—real-time insight into outage status.
- Incremental Updates and Restoration Alerts – Provide updates during multi-phase restoration and confirm when service resumes.
Smith stated the goal was: “ let our customers know what’s going on and make sure we were working on things as quickly as possible.”
Manual tools didn’t meet these goals. As Smith put it:
“I just didn’t think we could execute with manual notifications. There are so many things changing. And then how many resources are going to be required to do that versus if those folks could actually be resolving issues or talking to other customers? We wanted to go fully automated.”
This transparent communication fits in with the strong overall market sentiment: nearly 69% of consumers want companies to proactively communicate with them (Metrigy).
The Implementation
ETC chose GOCare’s OutageIQ due to its ability to deliver:
- Automated SMS notifications based on real-time network data
- Integration with IVR, allowing inbound callers to hear an outage status when they call in
- Internal portal visibility across customer service, dispatch, field teams, and management
- Maintenance notifications, not just unplanned outages
ETC invested in a cross-functional team for implementation, including stakeholders from customer service, network operations, IT, dispatch, and marketing. Testing included live simulations using spare cable modems and ONTs to verify automation thresholds and message accuracy.
Check out how ETC is showcasing its outage alerts on its website.
The Results
Since launch, ETC has realized significant operational and customer experience improvements.
⬇️ Call Volume Reduction
“We haven’t had to roll customer service reps into tech support since launching. Before, we always did during big storms.”
📈 Subscriber Satisfaction
“People now stop us in the grocery store and say, ‘I like this new service. I’m glad I know what’s going on.’”
🔧 Field Efficiency
ETC’s techs use the OutageIQ portal on mobile to track restoration in real-time.
“During a fiber cut, we caught a missed splice and fixed it on the spot. Before, we’d have closed the job and waited on complaints.”
🧠 Empowered Staff
“The portal gives our team real-time visibility. Our field techs, dispatchers, and support reps all use it. It’s huge internally—not just for customers.”
The Solution: GOCare OutageIQ
OutageIQ is GOCare’s proactive outage and maintenance communication platform. It combines:
- Real-time outage detection with automated and targeted SMS to only the affectedsubscribers
- Planned maintenance support as well as Outages
- IVR intercept with voice message alerts if a subscriber calls into ETC and is in an outage or maintenance window
- Workflow, automation-driven incremental updates and restoration notifications
- Optional freeform messages for extended events
- Quiet-hour configuration to remain compliant with FCC guidance
Notably: ETC defines an outage as eight customers out in any node segment, node or a splitter cabinet. This is an amazingly granular solution from GOCare’s OutageIQ.
Designed for broadband providers, OutageIQ reduces inbound contacts, improves transparency, and gives operations and communications teams the tools to keep subscribers informed—without added manual workload.
If you want to apply this same approach for your BSP, schedule a conversation with our team!
VP, Sales
Bradon brings decades of sales and business development experience in broadband software and BSS solutions to his leadership role at GOCare.