Convergencia Research, Consultoría especializada en Latinoamérica y Caribe
Thursday, January 30, 2020

Copaco to invest US$46 million this year and to carry out 5G trial in mid-2021

This was assured by Sante Vallese, president of the Paraguayan state company, in dialogue with Convergencialatina. Almost a year and a half after having taken office as head of Copaco, he talked about the improvements in quality of service, the positioning they seek for IPTV and the strategy faced with the competition to keep the lowest prices in the market.

Sante Vallese has been working at Compañía Paraguaya de Comunicaciones (Copaco), for 31 years, and since September 2018 he has been appointed as president. He also currently serves as Vice President of the Asociación Interamericana de Empresas de Telecomunicaciones (ASIET) (Inter-American Association of Telecommunications Companies). One of the focuses of his management as head of Copaco was to improve the quality of service and strengthen the network at the core level. In the company's forward plans are 5G, its own OTT and the expectation with the national fiber optic network.

Convergencialatina: What is the approximate amount of investment for Copaco this year and what will it focus on?

Sante Vallese (SV): It will be approximately US 46 million. In 2019, we expected to allocate large investments to fiber optic and radio base stations, but we had to channel them to other sectors. Firstly because we had a fully saturated network core with several years without investment. What we did was to focus to have our network strengthened. We acquired a new core that is now being installed and we expect it to be operational in three months. It is virtual and will be able to serve 5G in the future. It will allow us to have 5G in the mid next year and we have even acquired a quantity of radio base stations, although it is very small number.

By mid-2021 we want to launch a 5G trial in a high-density commercial area of Asunción.

Convergencialatina: How do you face competition from Tigo, which exceeds 40% of the mobile market, and strengthens itself in Paraguay and the region in fixed services?

SV: In mobile services, we boast this year about having the lowest prices. For example, Vox launched a data package at US 0.50 per day, to navigate for 24 hours with 20 GB.

As for fixed broadband, although Tigo has presence and network deployment, the customer from the interior prefers Copaco service. We launch services on fiber in interior areas and we are growing little by little. It is a difficult place, with large competitors and multinational companies. In addition, the Paraguayan market suffered a bit last year, as the region also did.

Convergencialatina: Is the Copaco OTT project still standing?

SV: Yes, we expect it will come true this year. It could be released in the second quarter. Now we are in the final adjustment stage.

Convergencialatina: And what place does the IPTV product occupy in the company's plans?

SV: The IPTV product is growing. In many localities in the country we offer broadband over ADSL. What we are doing in points of the city of Asunción is to take internet via fiber and take out those ADSL equipment to take them to the interior, to unserved cities. There we are also bringing IPTV and we observe very good acceptance, because they are places where they did not have television products (if they had it, it was through DTH), and now they have the possibility to access interactive TV.

We have a great task ahead of us because we have to bring the internet and then arrive with the IPTV. And it has to be of good quality, because IPTV consumes all the bandwidth in a transmission, since the platform does not adapt to the bandwidth with the content. That is why the incursion with an OTT I think will change the way of marketing the product.

Convergencialatina: At the time of taking office as president you promised an improvement in quality of service. How are you today and what is the company's current response rate to customer problems?

SV: The most problematic service was fixed telephony over copper (low line), because much of the network was totally destroyed. It took a long time to repair and put it in condition. The failures were solved, but after four or five days the client had the same problem again. The repairs allowed the service to be restored in 24 or 48 hours in case of a problem. There are still, however, some plants in certain locations with a broken network and we are fixing it.

As a result of the improvements, more than 50% of low-line customers do not experience technical problems any more.

Convergencialatina: Did contracting of services by State entities also improve?

SV: Today, after one year and a little more of management, the State rehired all Copaco broadband services and all corporate services, whereby we are again the number one provider in the State, which has closed contracts with us for more than US$4 million just in broadband. While we were already providing fixed telephony (low line) to public bodies, the hiring of broadband internet was largely going to other companies, and today again the State trusts Copaco.

Convergencialatina: When taking office as head of Copaco, you also demanded senior officers “to put on the shirt” of the company, and put aside the internal differences to place the customer first.

SV: The big problem Copaco had was that a group of the leadership of one of the unions within the company always tried to impose who the chiefs were or who should occupy this or that position. The management of the company corresponds to us and the unions are there to defend the rights of the workers. Today we are facing a renewed Copaco. I would say that one of the main achievements is to return to have the esteem and sense of belonging that had been lost within the firm.

Convergencialatina: You mentioned that there are two digital gaps, the internal one and other external. How is Paraguay in relation to these gaps?

SV: We advance a lot in reducing both of them. We expect that they shorten even more when the National Fiber Optic network is ready, which the Mitic is driving, because there we can offer Internet access to more schools and health centers.

In this year and a half Copaco connected 1,000 schools thanks to a 1,200 kilometer deployment of last mile fiber. Free Wi-Fi was also installed in squares and virtual libraries were created.

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