A couple of years ago, our leadership team made the decision to drop our wireless only focus and pursue fiber broadband projects. While the common wisdom is that fiber is the future and has the best long term return, this was a tough choice for us for a few reasons:
1) We have 25 years of experience with fixed wireless deployment and substantial existing infrastructure
2) The low cost and rapid timeline for fixed wireless deployment has always been a key differentiator for our company
3) Fiber deployment takes a long time, consumes all available money and requires us to build new relationships with vendors, contractors, engineers, grant writers and government entities
4) We had very little experience with fiber construction
Once decided, we jumped head first into fiber deployment and built our first small town. We learned a ton of lessons about how to deploy aerial fiber in a small town and had a good contractor to work with as we fumbled our way through the deployment. We finished about a month before the ILEC completed their fiber build in the same area and after adding new customers and converting wireless customers in the footprint we reached a penetration rate that could justify the investment.
Unfortunately, our luck ran out as we launched our next round of fiber deployment projects. Issues with Right of Way, pole make-ready, contractor performance, inventory management and design considerations piled up. Our financial performance suffered and timelines were pushed back as we scrambled to make corrections and get the projects back on track. I haven’t done a full audit of all the costs, but between the sub-optimal designs, wasted labor and inventory issues we probably wasted between $700K and a million dollars.
This has been a very trying time, but we emerged from this challenge with better processes, improved project management, great tools and the right team of people to meet the challenges of fiber construction. A few takeaways for people new to fiber construction:
1) Getting the design right can be hard, especially when you are new to the game. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and look for ways to be more efficient. Once you get it figured out, develop style guides for each type of deployment (aerial vs underground, rural vs suburban vs urban, etc) and make sure your design matches your style guide.
2) 2/3 of fiber project costs are in labor, so finding ways to be more efficient with labor will have more impact on project costs than saving a little on materials. We saved a little money on “spider fiber” and spent far more on splicing due to the extra labor required. Won’t make that mistake again.
3) No matter how good your contractors are, project managers are a necessity. Without supervision, materials disappear or don’t get used in the right place, work gets done in the wrong places, timelines go astray and costs escalate.
4) Construction software is a necessity. Trying to manage a complex fiber project without dedicated management software turns into a nightmare. We settled on Ocius-X and it has been a game changer for us.
5) Documentation is incredibly important, and tools like Vetro are incredibly valuable for accessing information on, maintaining and augmenting your fiber network.
6) Integrating documentation and construction management makes everything run much smoother! Now our designs start in Vetro, get exported to Ocius-X for construction and get exported back into Vetro as they are built. This is the way!
7) Make sure everything happens in the right order. Get final design and permitting done and get your contractors lined up before ordering materials. All of those steps need to be in place and ready to go before starting a project.
8) Develop as much in-house capability as you can. Some of the capabilities we have developed internally over the last year include:
a. Splicing
b. Basic Design
c. Permitting
d. Testing and Turnup
e. Project Management
f. Inventory Management
You don’t have to do everything yourself, but if you have too many dependencies your company’s reputation is in the hands of other entities. Remove leverage wherever possible.
I’m sure we have so many more lessons to learn, but these are just a few that stand out above the rest. One of my favorite sayings is “Never waste a good crisis” – and I’m very proud that our team faced these obstacles, got multiple projects completed and developed more valuable skills that will serve us well as we continue our broadband journey.
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