New pricing for Neotel consumer products

Rudolph Muller

Rudolph Muller is the editor at MyBroadband and covers telecoms and broadband news. Rudolph comes from an academic background, but left the University of...

Full Profile

E-mail

Over the last few months Neotel has come under increasing pressure from consumers about its lackluster performance in the local broadband market.

Neotel failed to make the splash which was expected of them as Telkom’s main competitor.  By not adjusting its CDMA based Internet access prices, despite radical changes in the ADSL ISP market this year, Neotel’s NeoConnect Prime and NeoFlex Data offering don’t match up to high end ADSL services.

Neotel has however quietly discontinued its high end CDMA based offerings, including its 10 GB and 15 GB NeoConnect Prime and NeoFlex Data services as well as its unlimited NeoConnect Prime service.  The company kept its 5 GB and lower offerings.

Neotel CTO Angus Hay explains that Neotel has adjusted the NeoConnect Prime and NeoFlex Data product ranges on its 3G CDMA network, as part of a move towards a new pricing methodology, to be announced within a few weeks.  The postpaid out-of-bundle rate on Neotel’s data products remains 8c per MB.

“The most popular products in each range, up to 5GB, remain available in the interim, though higher bundle sizes are not available. There have been no changes to the NeoGo mobile datacard range, arguably the best value for money mobile data offering on the market,” said Hay.

“Neotel is well aware that users are looking for lower average prices per MB, and this will be addressed in the new pricing,” said Hay.

Hay said that Neotel has chosen to no longer to offer an unlimited package on its CDMA EV-DO network – a move which requires some explanation.

“There are very real differences between wireless and wireline networks in supporting large numbers of concurrent users. Globally, wireless operators are finding that unlimited packages put severe strain on 3G networks, and that per download package pricing offers the optimum way to share their one non-renewable resource, frequency spectrum, fairly amongst users,” said Hay.

Hay added that users on the NeoConnect Prime Unlimited package have recently been offered the opportunity to migrate to Neotel’s fixed WiMAX network at no additional cost, where feasible.

“Migrating these high usage fixed users off the CDMA EV-DO network, together with a number of technical improvements in the network, and enhanced coverage, has resulted in improved performance for the majority of CDMA users, and a resumption of the growth in user numbers that Neotel experienced initially,” said Hay.

Hay pointed out that unlike 3G wireless, true broadband services over fibre can easily be uncapped without placing undue strain on the access network, and hence Neotel’s new NeoBroadband Fibre is both uncapped and unshaped.

Neotel consumer product pricing << comments and views