Among Hawaiian Telcom’s biggest priorities right now is expanding its fiber network throughout the state, including in rural communities, Ken Van Orman, director of product management at Hawaiian Telcom, told Pacific Business News.
“This year we expanded access to all of Lanai and most of Molokai. We’re committed to increasing digital equity in Hawaii by bringing access to our 100% fiber internet service, Fioptics, to more people in more places as quickly as we can,” Van Orman said.
PBN checked in with Van Orman about the company’s work toward digital equity, its approach to growth, its response to the Maui fires and more.
With 111,400 Hawaii subscribers, Hawaiian Telcom ranked No. 2 on this week’s List of Internet Service Providers, which will appear in the Friday print edition of PBN.
What is Hawaiian Telcom’s strategy in growing and retaining its customer base? Our strategy is to continue investing in and expanding our future-proof fiber network. We know that fiber technology provides the most reliable and high-performing connectivity for businesses as their bandwidth demands continue to grow. It’s clear that we are the provider of choice in the areas where we have fiber, and our goal is to continue increasing digital equity in Hawaii by bringing access to our 100% fiber internet service, Fioptics, to more people in more places as quickly as we can. With expanded fiber availability, we also continue to make important investments in systems and process improvements to drive a positive experience with our company and our products. We believe having the right technology and making it easy for customers to use our solutions to drive business outcomes will be what grows and keeps customers with us.
Internet service providers generally experienced an increase in demand during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic — is this something you’re still seeing? What is demand like now? During the pandemic, we saw about a 30 to 40% increase in additional aggregate traffic across our network, as many business professionals moved to working from home. This has continued as many people work from home at least part-time. We also saw an uptick in demand for higher bandwidth services, aligned with growth in content management systems and software platforms and sharing multimedia files. As people continue to send more data – large video files, live video chats, online gaming – demand for faster upload speeds continues to grow.
The state is pushing for increased digital equity, including providing internet access to underserved communities. How does Hawaiian Telcom see its role in this effort? Hawaiian Telcom remains at the forefront of the effort to increase digital equity. We have invested more than $1 billion over the past 10 years to further expand our future-proof fiber network, increase our network capacity and support communication solutions for our customers.
A great example of our commitment is our recently announced Middle Mile project. The middle mile connects last mile networks that connect to and serve end-users or customers. As announced this summer, Hawaiian Telcom will receive approximately $37 million from a highly competitive National Telecommunications and Information Administration grant, and we will contribute more than $50 million in private capital and in-kind contributions.
Hawaiian Telcom’s Middle Mile Project includes 15 new middle mile fiber routes – both terrestrial and undersea – that will bring broadband access closer to more unserved or underserved areas. These new routes will also address climate-related risks such as coastal flooding, erosion and impact from natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, fires, tsunamis and hurricanes.
What is the company’s biggest challenge right now, and how are you addressing it? Our biggest challenge is to expand our fiber network even faster! … Hawaiian Telcom continues to undergo a transformation from being known as the phone company to a world-class fiber company providing broadband and technology solutions. This challenge involves building a fiber network across the state and also transforming our company culture and the way our customers see and interact with us. We are tackling this through the thoughtful evolution of our products and services, and investment in tools and employee training, which is all geared towards improving our customer experience.
Over the next 12 months, we are focused on building fiber, looking to extend beyond 50% fiber availability in the state, and are investing heavily in internal system upgrades to drive a more efficient customer experience. We continue to evaluate the roles in our business to be more aligned with our overall, long-term goal of improving digital equity and establishing fiber as an enabler of growth and success for Hawaii businesses.
Hawaiian Telcom worked to provide connectivity at shelters and restore service following the Maui wildfires. Tell me more about the company’s response. Hawaiian Telcom has been in lockstep with emergency officials and other service providers on Maui since the tragedy began. Our immediate focus was restoring connectivity to cell sites, setting up free call forwarding for customers and access to free internet and phone service at shelters, and restoring service to customers outside of Lahaina. We continue to meet with emergency officials, build new infrastructure and help clear out debris. Crew members from other islands continue to work on Maui for weeks at a time to supplement our on-island workforce for as long as needed.
Every one of us knows someone who was impacted by the tragedy and all of us wanted to help in some way. Our employees and our company have donated generously to support Maui – financially and in volunteer hours. For more information about our efforts on Maui, please visit https://info.hawaiiantel.com/maui-response.
