TCS Testimonial - EION Wireless - English

Company makes gains, and avoids missteps, in South America.


http://www.tradecommissioner.gc.ca/eng/home.jsp
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TRANSCRIPT


EION Wireless is a broadband wireless company. We deploy products, which sit on top of a tower or a high-rise building, communicating with another tower or a building. We are heavily into the emerging markets; we have installations in the Middle East, in South America, in India and Africa. It all started off in 2005, when we had an opportunity for 40 networks deployments in South America, where they could connect the Amazon Jungle population to the credo, to the hospitals and the schools. First we decided that we would give a call to the Trade Commissioner, Mark Richardson was the Trade Commissioner. He was able to give an overview about the Ecuador market, Ecuador environment. He did introduce us to a range of people right from the service providers to enterprises and some of the bureaucrats within the local government, and also the local people. So this gave us, a; confidence that we can do business there, b; looked in the environment and technology will work. It actually resulted in us deploying real networks in the Amazon Jungle.

It's not always about successes; sometimes it's important that we don't make any mistakes. We have an opportunity in Peru. So after going through various discussions with the Trade Commissioners, we found out that opportunity is something, which is not a credible one, so we decided not to participate in it, and later we did realize, I believe with confirmation, that opportunity did not exist.

Assuming that we did not contact, and if we had continued that process, we would have been-got into the part of putting the bid together, and then going through the whole exercise of spending time and money, and here we avoided the whole thing.

When you look at the Trade Commissioners, they don't have any self-interest, they want to promote companies, like Canadian companies, like EION. So that means we are really getting the straight goods from the Trade Commissioners, and that's the significant value we see. So here we are, a neutral party, giving us the straight goods as opposed to hiring a consultant who has got their own interest in their business.

Ecuador was our first project outside North America, and the Trade Commissioners definitely helped us. Today, every country we go in there, we look for the Trade Commissioners as our first entry point in getting into the country and we have deployed right now, over 60 countries, our network. The Trade Commissioner Service has become our gateway into entering into any new market or new country.

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