How a Fast-Growing Fiber Operator Built National Scale on AEX OSS/BSS and AEX Field Squared

Ripple Fiber has successfully leveraged AEX OSS/BSS and AEX Field Squared to unify its field operations, provisioning, and billing across a 10-state footprint. Implementing AEX One as its core platform has enabled Ripple to scale installations and customer management at pace, doubling year on year in both passings and customers, without proportionally growing its back office.

"It is a neat sort of loop. AEX manages the product catalog, Field Squared handles the field activation, and then it connects back to AEX to do the provisioning and set up the billing. "

 - Lance van der Spy, President,Ripple Fiber

Challenge

When Lance van der Spuy joined Ripple Fiber in early 2023 as employee number 13, the company had an ambitious goal and a very small team. The founding vision, shaped by experience from fiber rollouts in South Africa and the UK, was to build a national fiber operator that felt less like a utility and more like a world-class software-as-a-service provider. Customers who had spent years being poorly treated by cable providers were ready to switch, but only if fiber operators could deliver something genuinely different: transparent pricing, reliable performance, and the kind of proactive communication they had come to expect from the best consumer technology brands.

Executing that vision at pace across multiple states with a lean back office meant getting the operational foundations right from the start. Early on, Ripple tried to stitch together the tools it needed using third-party integration software. It didn't deliver. Managing scheduling, dispatch, field documentation, customer communications, provisioning, and billing across separate systems created exactly the kind of friction the company was trying to avoid, and it was not going to scale.

The challenge deepened when Ripple acquired HyperFiber in 2025. The two businesses had grown up with different operational approaches, and bringing them onto a common set of processes, systems, and standards became a significant workstream in its own right, all while the company continued to grow.

The underlying problem was consistent throughout: how do you scale installations, field operations, and customer management across a multi-state footprint without proportionally scaling your headcount, and without letting service quality slip?

Solution

Ripple had adopted AEX OSS/BSS as its core platform from launch, drawn in part by its commercial model. AEX charges on a per-subscriber basis, which smooths costs and makes expansion into new markets financially predictable during the critical early build phase.

"It's very efficient for a startup network to use, because it smooths out the costs, makes it very predictable, and sort of helps with the funding cycle." Lance van der Spuy, President, Ripple Fiber

AEX OSS/BSS manages the product catalog, which surfaces directly on Ripple's website as the customer-facing order form. From there, the platform handles the full customer record: orders, communications, provisioning, billing, and the customer portal, acting as the system of record throughout the customer lifecycle.

It was through HyperFiber that Field Squared entered the picture. HyperFiber had been using it for field service management, and that relationship first brought it to AEX's attention. When AEX subsequently acquired it, Ripple adopted it as its field service management platform across the entire business.

Together, the two platforms create a continuous operational loop. Once an order is placed, AEX manages all outbound customer communications throughout the workflow. When the network is ready, a work order is pushed to Field Squared, which handles scheduling, dispatch, and on-site installation management. After the physical install is complete, the job closes back into AEX for provisioning, setting up the correct IP addresses, speeds, and bandwidth configuration, and billing is triggered automatically.

"It is a neat sort of loop. AEX manages the product catalog, Field Squared handles the field activation, and then it connects back to AEX to do the provisioning and set up the billing." Lance van der Spuy

Post-acquisition, Ripple has worked to standardize HyperFiber's processes and workflows onto this integrated platform. The final step, consolidating both businesses under a single AEX instance, is nearly complete.

Benefits

Scaling efficiently and effectively

With processes encoded in the platform, including workflows, checklists, documentation requirements, and provisioning steps, Ripple has been able to bring in contract crews and new technicians without extensive manual training. The system enforces the standard. At the management level, this creates what Lance describes as a manage-by-exception model: central functions are consolidated, anomalies are surfaced automatically, and teams focus on resolving exceptions rather than manually tracking operations across every state.

"You're able to centralize core functions, and you sort of look at managed by exception, rather than managing the rule, which is always a much more scalable way to manage field operations." Lance van der Spuy

Turning construction disruption into a conversion opportunity

Network economics in fiber are straightforward in principle but demanding in practice. Capital investment goes in upfront; subscriber uptake follows over three to four years. Anything that pulls that curve forward makes a rollout easier to fund and justify more quickly.

The construction phase, despite being operationally demanding, is also one of the highest-value moments for customer engagement. Any platform capability that helps identify and reach the right prospects at that moment, shortening the sales cycle, has a direct effect on network economics.

"The construction phase is very disruptive, but it's also the best time to engage your potential customers, because they're intrigued. They're trying to understand what's happening. You get to engage and explain what Ripple Fiber is and why fiber is better than cable." — Lance van der Spuy, President, Ripple Fiber

Operationalizing the White Glove promise

Ripple's White Glove Installation is central to its market positioning. Field Squared provides the reporting layer that makes that promise operational at scale. Managers track technician arrival times, completion rates, error rates, and customer ratings job by job, enabling them to reward top performers, coach those who need support, and maintain service consistency across geographically dispersed markets.

"To manage and reward technician behavior, you need a robust system and robust reporting around that, so that you celebrate the winners, and then that drives better performance." Lance van der Spuy

Delivering a SaaS-grade customer experience

What sets Ripple's approach apart is how the company thinks about what it is actually selling. Lance is direct about it: fiber customers are not buying a utility. They are buying out of a bad relationship with their cable provider, and what they want in return is closer to the experience they get from the best consumer software subscriptions.

"They've been the customer who has been abused for so many years by cable operators. They're not just switching because it's a better technology. They're tired of being messed around, of no communication, of prices being jacked up, and of lagging speeds. They see Ripple as a software-as-a-service subscription, rather than a utility." Lance van der Spuy

That framing has direct implications for where the platform creates the most value. Automated, triggered communications at every stage of the workflow, from order confirmation through appointment scheduling, job completion, and billing setup, mean that the customer experience does not depend on whether someone remembered to make a call. Accurate, timely communication is built into the process.

"If you're communicating with them, telling them who's coming and what the time slot is, and then you're actually meeting those commitments, that's what customers expect from a new technology. That's probably the best thing we can do." Lance van der Spuy

Growth at pace

Since launch, Ripple Fiber has grown from a 13-person startup to a 10-state operator, passing more than 250,000 homes and doubling year on year in both passings and customers. With a target of over one million customers across its existing markets, the combination of AEX OSS/BSS and Field Squared remains the operational backbone connecting every step of that journey.

Summary

Ripple Fiber's growth from a 13-person startup to a 10-state operator didn't happen by accident. It happened because the right operational foundation was in place from day one. With every step of the customer journey connected across a single platform, from the first serviceable address to billing and beyond, the team could scale without losing control of quality, consistency, or cost.

AEX OSS/BSS and AEX Field Squared are both part of AEX One, a unified end-to-end platform purpose-built for fiber operators. 

"Almost to reward good technician behavior, you need a robust system and robust reporting around that, so that you celebrate the winners, and then that drives better performance. "
-  Lance van der Spy, President,Ripple Fiber