A worldwide demand for broadband has created a shortage of active wireless components and skilled workers who know how to install them, reports Broadband Communities Magazine. Providers looking to keep pace with rollout targets are encountering delays while they wait for semiconductor chips, fiber, and a trained workforce.
The lack of supplies is noticeable in United States and European markets that have distanced themselves from Asian manufacturers, according to analysts. “I haven’t really picked up on any discussion about a national sovereignty approach, but given the ongoing trade restrictions with China, certainly the undercurrents are there,” said Tom Tunstall, of the Institute for Economic Development at the University of Texas at San Antonio. “Business schools and organizations should rethink supply-chain strategy going forward – that reliable trading partners are of equal or greater importance to the cheapest trading partner.”
“I think there’s a feeling that perhaps the U.S. unwisely offshored a lot of capabilities and gave up our dominant positioning in manufacturing,” Tunstall added.
“There’s a massive explosion [of investment] happening in that market for everything from raw materials to the electronics that go on either end of the fiber,” stated Ronan Kelly, CTO for ADTRAN, a telecom networking equipment provider. “The challenge today is there’s not a lot of investment to bring in additional capacity in the older part of the industry that serves our needs. Investment dollars are primarily focused on developing and manufacturing the seven-, five- and three-nanometer technology chips for bigger returns,” noted Kelly.
Kelly explained, “You can have the most sophisticated circuit board in the world, but if you don’t have that last filter cap on it, you can’t make the product to sell,” reports Broadband Communities Magazine.
Managing supply chains and setting revised expectations for materials delivery addresses part of the problem. However, since all the components in the world are not going to install themselves, attracting and training skilled technicians is paramount, according to the account.
“There are a lot of big players, they’re all chasing the same skilled labor, and it’s very unit-driven and not very relationship-driven, which is what we value,” stated Monte Hill, president of On Trac Inc. Hill adds that while his company values experienced telecom workers, it’s hard to reconsider hiring parameters to find ambitious, reliable employees with unrelated backgrounds who are eager to learn new job skills.
“One of my last two project manager hires was a director for a parks and recreation department and the other was a high-school teacher and baseball coach,” said On Trac Executive VP Joseph Jones. “They had no technology experience whatsoever but were looking for a new opportunity. They fit personality-wise into our culture. So, going outside the industry has worked very well for us. In our experience, we’ve had far less turnover with these employees compared with those who’ve been in the industry a long time.”
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