Neotel planning prepaid broadband and data bundles

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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Neotel recently unveiled their first prepaid service which is essentially a prepaid fixed voice service, delivered over the NeoConnect Lite device, with basic access to the Internet.

This service provides users with a NeoConnect Lite desktop phone – which doubles up as an internet access device – for R599 which is accompanied by a R50 airtime voucher. 

The NeoConnect Lite device supports peak data speeds of 156 Kbps, but Neotel said that realistic speeds will be between 50 Kbps and 70 Kbps. Data will be charged at 20c per MB without the option to purchase bundles to reduce the cost.

Call rates on the new Neotel prepaid service will be 50c to any landline number (peak and off-peak) while calls to mobile phones will be charged at R1.50 during peak times and R1.20 during off-peak times.

At an effective R205 per GB for Internet access at speeds of around 60 Kbps many high end users were less than impressed with Neotel’s first prepaid offering.  Neotel is however planning improved offerings aimed at other market segments.

The company confirmed that it is also developing prepaid services for their NeoConnect Prime and NeoFlex products, and is planning to launch prepaid data bundles with a lower per-MB rate.

Neotel could however not commit to a timeline as to when these new services will become available.

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