Achieving Innovation breakthrough, harvesting in golden autumn, FiberHome assists Operator A in accelerating FTTH construction.
Known as the second largest country in Latin America, Argentina was once one of the richest country around the world. However Argentina’s development slowed down in recent decades due to the economy issues. Until now, the coverage rate of FTTH in Argentina is only around 3%, even lower than the surrounding small countries. Because of the vast territory and huge population, Argentina has great market potential in the FTTH construction. Relying on FiberHome’s unremitting efforts and innovation breakthrough in pre-connectorized solution, FiberHome finally harvested in the golden autumn, successfully undertaking the FTTH turnkey project of Operator A, one of the largest operators in Argentina.
Argentina Operator A is the top 3 comprehensive operator in Argentina. This year (2018), Operator A decided to develop millions of FTTH HPs in recent 2 years, this project was supported by Argentina government, injecting a powerful force into the silent Argentine FTTH market since long before. In order to complete the project with high quality in time, Operator A started to try to use turnkey mode to deploy, which is totally new to them. As the one of the leading turnkey contractors in global FTTH , FiberHome has has strong construction strength and rich construction experience and has received attention of Operator A. The cooperation between the two parties seems to work out by themselves easily, however actually there is full of challenges for FiberHome.
Challenge 1: Distant country, unfamiliar market
The distance between Argentina and China is more than 22 thousand kilometers and time difference is 11 hours. For most of Chinese people, Argentina is on the other side of the world , the ends of the earth. The insignificant distance issue, once upgraded to such a level, becomes a challenge. However, obviously, this challenge is not a problem for hard working FiberHome staff. To seize the precious time to communicate with the headquarters, all the staff in the entire South American region work until late at night every day. To support the South American market better, the headquarters also make time to work at night. Argentina office and headquarters maybe miles apart, but these 2 parts are like the kite and the line, supporting and cooperating with each other, even bridging the longest distance in the world.
Beside distance, Argentina FTTH market is also an unfamiliar market for FiberHome. Several years before, FiberHome used to cooperate with Argentina operators but only few types of products were sold then. With the prevalence of trade protectionism in the Argentine government, high tariffs and closed market conditions have forced many foreign companies including FiberHome to retreat. In recent years, after the new government came into office, Argentina implemented the new trade policy, FiberHome was keenly aware of the opportunity, and established the Argentine office at the end of 2015. In early 2017, FiberHome officially registered Argentine subsidiary company. However, the distance between these two countries causes huge differences between their ODN products. Argentina FTTH market has been guided by European and American company for a long time, operators are using totally different types of products, the experience FiberHome gained for South-east Asia market is difficult to promote in Argentina. In addition, the high labor cost and the poor fusion skill of Argentina workers force most operators to use pre-connectorized solution. And this new solution is also the core challenge FiberHome faces in the Operator A project.
Challenge 2: pre-connectorized solution, tough breakthrough
Recently, because of the high labor cost in America and European market, more and more mainstream operators choose pre-connectorized solution. As mentioned above, Argentina labor costs are very high but workers' construction capability is relatively low especially in the fusion skills which is necessary for every FTTH network construction. These problems have been the headache for the Argentine operators.
Due to the practical situation and the influence of competitors, the pre-connectorized solution becomes the mainstream solution in Argentina FTTH market. Operator A also chooses this solution to deploy their FTTH network naturally. However, there is very high patent barrier for pre-connectorized solution and other companies holds the patents on the only 2 existing solutions in market. These patents cover almost everything in pre-connectorized solution. FiberHome has to break the patent barrier, research and develop a brand-new solution. Only in this way, can FiberHome ensure the advantage of low cost in current market, and this of course is most difficult way.
FiberHome is never afraid of hardship in researching and developing new products and new solution. Thanks to the ODN product design and production experience and strong innovative design team, after hard exploration and innovative breakthrough, repeated sample delivery and negotiation with customers, FiberHome breaks the patent barrier and finally develops a brand new path to realize pre-connectorized solution. Not only that, but the newly developed pre-connectorized solution of FiberHome also has a strong price advantage in the market competition. With such an excellent product solution, FiberHome once again won the opportunity to cooperate with Operator A.
Challenge 3: the brand-new solution, complex environment
With the professional design and customized products solution FiberHome has won the favour of Operator A. But the Argentinian team faced new challenges. The brand-new product solution means a brand-new FTTH construction mode and construction plan, also the mature construction experience in Southeast Asia is difficult to copy to the Argentine market.
In addition, this project is also the first turnkey project for Operator A. They didn’t have turnkey project experience before, so they are unable to provide complete design, construction and acceptance documentation to direct FiberHome to successfully complete the turnkey project.
To utilize brand-new solution, the Argentine team then went to the customer's self-built site to survey, record the construction method of the customer's network in details and workout analysis documents. To deal with complex environment, the Argentine team and Operator A established a long-term communication mechanism to understand client's first-hand construction ideas and provide client with the best solution. At the headquarters, the ODN production line also established a professional turnkey project support team at once, fully researching the customer's design method, and formulating a complete construction plan. Finally, FiberHome won the trust from Operator A even if FiberHome didn’t have final products solution yet at that time!
After several months planning and negotiating, FiberHome began to flourish in Argentine market eventually and was awarded the first turnkey project by Operator A in the northern city Catamarca in Argentina.
