In 2018, a well-established broadband equipment provider in North America was facing a critical inflection point. With annual revenue around $400 million, it was considered a leading but not dominant player in the region, competing against giants like Nokia, Huawei, and Adtran, while also contending with a flood of lower-cost vendors from Asia. The company’s portfolio of CPE, ONT, and OLT devices supported hundreds of regional broadband service providers (BSPs), but the numbers were moving in the wrong direction. Revenue was fluctuating, margins were shrinking, and the company was consistently operating at a net loss. It was clear that relying on hardware sales alone was unsustainable. The business model had to evolve.
VISION
CHALLENGES
Several industry dynamics pushed the company to rethink its future:
Commoditization of Hardware: Routers and access devices were increasingly viewed as interchangeable commodities. Competing on price led to shrinking profit margins and little room for differentiation.
“Dumb Pipe” Limitations: BSPs themselves were stuck in a bandwidth-only model, competing on speed and price. With no value-added services to offer, they had little leverage to increase ARPU or foster loyalty.
Operational Complexity: Deployments were cumbersome, requiring heavy manual configuration and costly field technicians. Managing multiple systems from different vendors drained resources and slowed innovation.
In short, the company was watching its hardware-centric model erode, while its customers (BSPs) struggled to break free of low-margin, undifferentiated service delivery.
SOLUTION
The turning point came in 2018, when the company embraced a bold strategic transformation: shifting from hardware to becoming a software and cloud platform provider. Central to this transformation was its partnership with Lionic DPI technology.
Lionic supplied a comprehensive on-premise DPI engine, seamlessly integrated into the company’s newly built cloud backbone and management app. This platform unlocked a suite of ready-to-deploy services for BSPs: security, parental controls, QoS, and more. Importantly, it wasn’t just about features, it was about creating a turn-key solution that BSPs could deploy under their own brand with minimal effort.
For smaller ISPs who lacked the R&D muscle or bargaining power to build such solutions, this was game-changing. Instead of spending years and millions of dollars on in-house development, they could roll out new services within weeks or months. The result was a multi-win model:
At the heart of this transformation was Lionic’s DPI, providing not only the technical foundation, but also the flexibility and depth needed for continuous growth.
RESULTS
The transformation proved highly successful. Today, the company serves over 1,000 BSPs across North America, with a continuously expanding feature set supported by Lionic’s DPI expertise.
What began as a hardware vendor at risk of being commoditized has become a cloud and software platform leader, enabling ISPs of all sizes to thrive in a competitive market. The company now enjoys recurring revenue stability, a reputation for innovation, and a business model built for the future.
And the journey continues. With Lionic’s DPI delivering a one-stop, full-stack solution. Backed by customization, integration support, and ongoing innovation, the partnership is preparing both companies to address the next wave of challenges, from IoT device proliferation to AI-driven traffic intelligence.