Page 4 - Hawaii Island MidWeek - Feb 17, 2021

4 HAWAI‘I ISLAND MIDWEEK FEBRUARY 17, 2021
Hawaiian Telcom’s top executive Su Shin is moving as fast as she can to meet the growing demand for broadband service across the state.
All of which is good news for Ha- wai‘i’s speed-conscious consumers. “The immediate challenge ahead for us is how we can move more quickly to deploy fiber to more communities, to more residences, to more businesses,” explains Shin. “I’d say it’s both our biggest chal- lenge and our biggest opportunity. Wehavetobeabletogettoaplace where more folks have access to high-speed internet and broadband.”
he story of Su Shin is about speed, or more specifically, the fast-moving fiber network
ber to every single business in the state today ...”
phone, internet and TV options — is more than capable of expanding its broadband reach. Just in the past decade alone, the company has in- vested more than $500 million to grow its fiber network in Hawai‘i, all while deploying broadband service across 178,000 locations, which include 10,000 homes and businesses in rural areas.
While there’s an element of good fortune to her story, it’s also true that Shin brought her own set of qual- ifications to the job. Beyond her ability to effectively communicate with others, she’s also blessed with innate qualities that have served her well during her speedy ascent to the top of the telecommunications landscape. Those traits include the inquisitive and determined sides of her personality that first drove her to become a broadcast journalist in the 1990s.
that seems to be on her mind a lot these days.
But it’s coming. Patience is key, she notes, particularly at a time when so many people have become stay-at-home workers or students and might be wondering why it’s taking the fiber infrastructure so long to be fully built.
That’s what happens when you assume the helm of a local tele- communications company and the indispensable need for broadband speed is everywhere — in homes, in businesses, in schools, in cars.
“I think what happens often in this day and age with our cell phones and our Wi-Fi access, is that (broadband connectivity) al- most feels magical,” Shin explains. “But it isn’t magical; there’s a ton of work, a ton of planning, a ton of effort that goes into us being able to expand that fiber network.
Last October, for example, the company put the finishing touch- es on its fiber expansion project on Moloka‘i, where hundreds of homesteaders in Kualapu‘u and ‘Ualapu‘e were finally able to en- joy the benefits of digital connectiv- ity. And buoyed by last week’s an- nouncement of a $24 million award from the Federal Communications Commission, the company plans to increase fiber broadband service to both unserved and underserved ar- eas across the state.
Not that Shin would ever com- plain about the dizzying demand for ubiquitous service. Exactly one year after being named president and general manager of Hawaiian Telcom, she still intends to have fiber — which transmits digital in- formation almost as quickly as the speed of light — be accessible to all.
hin’s rapid rise to prominent business leader in the commu- nity can best be described with
“It’s my curiosity and my unwill- ingness to take the first answer I get,” states Shin, who some may re- member from her days as a reporter at KHNL-TV.
“We’re constantly planning, en- gineering and building fiber,” says Shin. “We don’t have fiber to every single home and we don’t have fi-
“So, it’ll happen ... I just wish it could happen way faster.”
“I didn’t envision this,” admits Hawaiian Telcom’s first female president in its 138-year history. “For me, my career path has been one of being at the right place at the right time.”
But after a few years in the jour- nalism field, Shin decided a change was in order. She accepted the posi-
Thankfully, Hawaiian Telcom — which continues to provide a broad range of communication and technology services, including
SEE PAGE 5
her own words: nontraditional and unique.