CTI is not only a distributor of wireless equipment, but also offers financing, education, logistics, and other services.

by Jeff Goldman [September 27, 2006]

Chicago-based CWLab (Cable and Wireless Lab) was founded in the mid-'90s to provide systems integration and engineering services to wireless cable companies and early fixed wireless providers, helping them deliver Internet services over their networks. In the late '90s, the company also started its own WISP in the Chicago area.

CTI 16W235 83rd Street, Suite A Burr Ridge, IL 60527 Voice: (773) 667-4585 mailto: support@cticonnect.com

That combination—providing systems integration services and running a WISP—drew the attention of other wireless ISPs, whose inquiries soon led to CWLab becoming a distributor, offering equipment and implementation services to other WISPs. In 2004, however, CWLab switched its focus to testing and research when its distribution arm was purchased by CTI (Communications Technologies International).

Financing services
Charles Wu, CTI's operating manager, says the company's greatest strength is its ability to provide financing for its customers. "From an ISP perspective, or even from a rural telco perspective, capital is a big issue—and we have a variety of programs that can break up a $300 CPE into a $13-a-month payment," he says.

"Having to spend $300 on a radio and then having to buy $50 to $75 worth of hardware for mounting kits, mats, grounding, lightning arrestors and all that kind of stuff—and then selling your Internet service for $40 a month and waiting for six months to recoup your capital, that's pretty tough for a lot of these small guys," Wu says.

As a result, it's relatively easy to make the argument for financing through CTI. Whereas a provider might have to pay $18 or $21 a month for a DSL loop, Wu notes, they can instead pay anywhere from $13 to $21 a month for wireless gear—the key difference being that, in three years, they'll own their own equipment and their own infrastructure.

Logistics and labor
A key service CTI offers to larger clients is logistics support. "When you're a larger company doing, let's say, a 50 tower or 100 tower regional rollout, and you order lots of these big antennas, companies just don't have space to put this stuff—it's a big issue," he says. "Then on top of that, there's all sorts of accessories and miscellaneous things that are needed, and managing that is very important."

No matter how large the carrier may be, that kind of outsourced support can be very helpful. "From an operator perspective, you only need this service when you're doing a rollout—and once you've built your network, there's no need to maintain the warehouse and the staff and the people to assemble and do all of that, so it's not really cost-effective for them to hold onto that staff," Wu says.

CTI also provides wholesale labor for rollouts—while the company's install crews are located in the Midwest, Wu says it's easy and affordable to deploy them anywhere in the U.S. "When ISPs need assistance from tower crews or installers who are trained on the product when they're doing some sort of a rollout, we have staff dedicated for doing that," Wu says.

Education and pricing
Once WISPs have been up and running for a few years, Wu says, they no longer need basic guidance, but they can profit from other kinds of education. "So we run road shows and educational seminars free of charge all around the country, where we tell them, 'Here are new products, here are new services that you can use to potentially make your network better,'" he says.

Wu says it's those kinds of additional services that really make the difference for CTI's customers—the equipment a given distributor offers, he says, isn't likely to serve as much of a differentiator. "If you look at our line card versus Electro-Comm or Hutton or TESSCO or Talley, they're all pretty similar—we all have the same products," he says.

And each distributor's pricing, Wu says, is also relatively similar. "If you're a longstanding customer, if you've done a lot of business with Electro-Comm and just want one other thing and you've never done any business with us, you're probably going to get a better price from Electro-Comm than us just because of volume and history," he says. "But price is generally about the same wherever you go."

Helping customers grow
Thanks to the company's background as a WISP, Wu says, CTI prioritizes quick response times and availability of product. "We ship on Saturdays, and we ship fairly late during the week, too, because we understand how it is when people are having problems and they need a radio overnight because their network went down and they can't wait until Monday," he says.

Ultimately, Wu says, CTI's aim is to develop customer relationships that last. "It's nice to see how we've taken small entrepreneurs who were starting out of their garage, we've helped them grow big through the various services that we have—leasing or financing or support or engineering—and then to watch them get bought out by larger companies and move on to do larger rollouts, now that more carrier, enterprise-level service providers are looking seriously at unlicensed wireless." he says.

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