Monterrey-based phone repair firm expands into United States

GC Telecom, which moved into ITECC business incubator a year ago, offers an alternative to wireless customers who find themselves with broken equipment — fixing it.

In the United States, cell phone insurance plans are the norm. If something goes wrong with your phone, insurance — if you opt for it, and many people do — takes care of it. America throws away mountains of cell phones each day.

In Mexico, Central and South America, insurance is not the rule. GC Telecom, which got its start in Monterrey 15 years ago, has grown into an extremely successful venture with some 600 employees at 24 repair labs throughout Latin America, roughly half of them at its main lab in Monterrey. The company is certified by all the major cell phone manufacturers, such as LG and Motorola, and also — since it also services all Bose sound systems — by the Bose Corporation. In addition to off-the-street repairs GC handles software upgrades, refurbishment and repair logistics for the major wireless providers.

Newly formed in the United States, GC is ramping up its operations on this side of the border. So far its U.S. presence consists of the state-of-the-art, 3,000-square-foot lab at the International Technology Education and Commerce Center and a kiosk in front of Radio Shack at Sunrise Mall. But the company is dreaming big.

Benjamin Luna, GC’s head of sales and business development on this side of the border, said the plan is to replicate the company’s Latin American success in the United States. GC wants to be on every corner and in every shopping mall in America within three to five years. Luna acknowledges it will mean going up against very large providers and their insurance plans.

"Our main thing is getting the people to know us, getting them to know that we do repairs," he said.

GC has done some advertising and plans to do more in the coming month. There’s a Facebook page. Luna said the firm is working on nailing down certifications with cell phone makers and contracts with the big vendors in order to do basically the same thing here that it’s doing in Latin America.

The company aims to hire 150 technicians at its Brownsville lab within a year. Those employees would be trained at the company’s Monterrey facility. John Sossi, director of the business incubator, said one advantage to being located at ITECC — in addition to the various kinds of support the incubator offers — is the proximity to students and graduates from the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College who specialize in the technical fields.

For now, most of GC’s business in Brownsville is in the form of customer drop-offs at the ITECC lab or the Sunrise Mall kiosk. For example, Luna said four or five iPhones came in last week with cracked screens or back covers. A cracked screen will cost you $70 to $80 and takes less than an hour to repair. If parts have to be ordered, it takes four to seven days. GC includes a one-month warranty on parts and labor.

Luna said that not only do customers not have to deal with their providers over non-working phones, but fixing phones when they break — as opposed to insuring them — is cheaper. Wireless providers make a lot of money off insurance fees, he noted.

"If you put the numbers together we’re a lot cheaper," Luna said.

Another advantage to repairing rather than tossing out broken phones is that, simply put, it’s less wasteful and better for the environment, he said.

"It’s just unbelievable what’s thrown out here," Luna said. "I did some research before we started work on the company here. Every hour there’s about 16,000 cell phones thrown away in the U.S. Now that’s just unbelievable."