Neotel expects more

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...

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DISGRUNTLED Telkom subscribers have been able to get Neotel’s competing wireless voice and Internet service from PostNet branches since March.

Though regulations say households should be allowed to keep their numbers if they change phone companies, this has not been implemented yet.

The hassle of changing contact details seems to have got the second landline telephone operator off to a slow start. Neotel hopes Telkom will implement number portability as required within the next month.

Only 200 residential users signed up during the April launch month, and Neotel has declined to give further updates. At its launch in March, Neotel said its target was 50000 residential subscribers by the end of its first year.

Wandile Zote, head of corporate communication at Neotel, said: “The process of installation is fairly simple, as long as the network coverage is available in the applicant’s area of residence.”

Neotel’s NeoConnect product line (which includes voice, data and Internet services) is still only available at PostNet outlets, but the company said it was in talks with other retailers to make the product more widely available.

Rajay Ambekar, IT analyst at Cadiz Asset Management, said: “The fact that there could be delays will have a negative effect on Neotel. It’s in Telkom’s best interest to delay as much as possible.”

Ambekar said that customers were more likely to wait for Geographic Number Portability to become available before they signed up for Neotel’s services, and the delays were hurting the company’s ability to advance with its offering.

According to a mandate set by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa , Telkom and Neotel are required to work closely together to ensure that the process of porting numbers between the two networks is seamless.

“Icasa will be meeting with the fixed-line operators on this issue, and only after that will there be clarity in regard to the fixed-line number portability process,” said Icasa spokesman Sekgoela Sekgoela.

Customers must be able to have their numbers ported within 10 days for individual numbers and 20 days for blocks of numbers.

Ambekar said that while the delay of GNP was limiting to the growth of Neotel’s subscriber numbers, there were other factors to consider.

“Some of Telkom’s home and corporate customers, especially for broadband services, have entered into two-year contracts and there will be penalties if they migrate to Neotel.

“While there was a lot of noise about mobile number portability, there weren’t that many people who ported once the service became available,” Ambekar said.

Neotel discussion