Fiber One banks on upgrades
Fiber One, a fibre-optic network developer, is poised for stellar growth through 2020 as the company capitalises on the country’s critical transition in internet technology from traditional copper wire to fibreoptic communications.
“We expect our revenue to exceed 1 billion baht in 2017, up from 100 million baht last year, thanks to the replacement cycle for fibre-optic networks,” said chief marketing officer Sommasatien Lertwatanakul.
The company’s net profit margin is 20-30%.
Fiber One is also a provider of highspeed internet service through the fibreoptic network. Founded in 2015, the company expects to break even in 2020 — five years before the industry estimate of 10 years.
“With an effective economies of scale strategy to gain cost effectiveness in network management, we can enjoy solid growth in revenue and profit,” Mr Sommasatien said.
He said almost all internet service providers (ISP) provide last-miles broadband internet service to Thai households through old copper telephone lines, resulting in inconsistent service, especially in video streaming systems.
Last-mile is any telecom technology that carries signals from the broad communication backbone along the relatively short distance to and from the home or business, making up the infrastructure at the neighbourhood level.
“After eight decades of the supremacy of copper wires, it’s time for local internet service providers to beef up delivery capacity of the last-mile by replacing old copper telephone cables with optical fibres,” Mr Sommasatien said.
A fibre-optic line can deliver transmission rates of 1 gigabytes per second or 1,000 megabytes per second, compared with less than 30Mbps of a copper wire.
A fibre-optic technology network can span transmission rates of up to 100Gbps.
“I believe copper wires will become obsolete in 5-10 years,” Mr Sommasatien said, adding that fibre-optic technology will continue to be used for at least five decades.
Fiber One in February joined forces with Charoen Cable TV to allocate slots on its fibre-optic network to the cableTV operator.
Mr Sommasatien said the partnership will immediately bring in 600,000 new customers who signed up with Charoen’s pay-TV service to Fiber One. Fiber One will earn internet access fees from digital content streaming and broadcasting on its fibre-optical network.
“We expect to have a total 1 million customer accounts using our fibre optic network by year-end, up from 300,000 currently,” he said.
Mr Sommasatien said the proliferation of mobile users and high-bandwidth always-on internet connectivity leads to more and more IP-based streaming services with a range of services from home automation, e-commerce, e-payment, e-shopping, security and digital content services.
By year-end, Fiber One will broaden its ranges of services i nto banking, video-based security systems like CCTV (closed-circuit television), and cybersecurity solutions.
Mr Sommasatien said Fiber One is gearing up to expand business in CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam) by September this year, starting with Vietnam and Myanmar. The company plans to set up a new subsidiary in June to take charge of business operations abroad.
“We expect to have at least 5 million customer accounts over the next 3-5 years,” he said. “We expect our revenue in 2018 to grow at a faster pace than 2017, driven by robust demand for fibre optic communications and the growing popularity of sharing network resources.”
Fiber One also plans to list on the Market for Alternative Investment (MAI) in early 2018.