Neotel throws in the towel for it's crappy CDMA service

Neotel throws in the towel for it's crappy CDMA service. Well not exactly. But the signs are there:

At the same time as launching prepaid offerings, Neotel is moving its higher-end retail customers, those who use a lot of data, off its CDMA network and onto WiMax. Pandey says WiMax is better suited to customers who require broadband Internet access. There will be no cost implications for users who are upgraded to WiMax.

WiMax, Pandey says, is a better alternative to the broadband digital subscriber lines offered by Telkom. The CDMA network will be used mainly for providing voice services and “low-end data connectivity”.

Several thousand CDMA customers will be migrated to WiMax in 2010. “If we are in a position to give them fibre-based connectivity, we’d love to do that, but we now know there is a good percentage who can be graduated to WiMax,” Pandey says.

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The full article can be found on TechCentral - Neotel to launch prepaid products.

Crux of the story is that Neotel have no faith in their own CDMA service to provide a decent, reliable broadband connection. Why then should we as consumers even support them? Their internet service is terrible, their billing is terrible, their support is terrible, there is no usage monitor (still), they themselves don't even faith in their own CDMA network, and they can't and won't compete with ADSL on price.

For those that haven't dumped Neotel already, what more reasons do you need/want to dump them????? Staying with Neotel defies all logic!

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UPDATE (09-April-2010):

More evidence (this time from Angus Hay, Executive Head of Technology) that Neotel are throwing in the towel for its crappy CDMA/EVDO Network:

“Coupled with its national long distance fibre backbone, the first phase of which we expect to be completed by July, Neotel is offering businesses a true Internet experience,” notes Hay.

He says that despite what many believe, wireless technologies are not always the right way to go in the South African context. “The reality is that fibre is the only way that you can get truly high-speed Internet.”

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Source: ITWeb: Get 10Mbps fibre from Neotel

"Despite what many believe" ???

WTF...? EVERYONE knows that fibre is the way to go!! Do you think we're all idiots? We've been asking for fibre connectivity for years!!

The NeoHell joke continues...

Will their current phones & devices work on WiMax? If so - no problem.

Neotel is still the best option if you just want basic internet - R99 pm and R80 per gig - that's a good deal. I would have gotten it for my GF but she isn't covered. Now we're forced to look at more expensive 3G, WiMax or ADSL options.

Will their current phones & devices work on WiMax? If so - no problem.

Neotel is still the best option if you just want basic internet - R99 pm and R80 per gig - that's a good deal. I would have gotten it for my GF but she isn't covered. Now we're forced to look at more expensive 3G, WiMax or ADSL options.

So does that mean all the Neoflex users are being upgraded to WiMax?

Synaesthesia said:

Will their current phones & devices work on WiMax? If so - no problem.

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No it won't. CDMA is completely different technology to Wimax - they are not compatible at all.

Neotel is still the best option if you just want basic internet - R99 pm and R80 per gig - that's a good deal.

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Yes if it worked the way its supposed to, which it doesn't. You can get uncapped 384K ADSL + ADSL line rental for R350. Add an extra R131 for voice line rental (if you don't already have a Telkom line) and this will bring it to R480. Also, Neotel charges R80 per GB. ADSL costs are now between R15 and R30 per GB from tons of ISPs, and even less if you take uncapped. The costs can be as low as R2-R3 per GB.

I would have gotten it for my GF but she isn't covered. Now we're forced to look at more expensive 3G, WiMax or ADSL options.

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Your GF is lucky - you should consider her saved.

MDE said:

So does that mean all the Neoflex users are being upgraded to WiMax?

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I wonder... Time will tell...

Maybe Hugo can shed some light on this for us?

If we waited for time to tell...it may be past our life time then

I agree with ToxicWazte.

“I’m not in the game of tit for tat,” he says. “I’m more interested in pulling my customers up the value chain, which is why I said high-end users are being pulled up to WiMax and why enterprise customers are being graduated into the data centre and into managed services. I’m not fighting in the space where 10 000 extra subscribers will make or break my story.”

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Do I see a repeat of Sentech?
They are focussing on their high end customers.

ToxicWazte said:

No it won't. CDMA is completely different technology to Wimax - they are not compatible at all.

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I know - I thought maybe their phones have both chipsets. I guess that's not very good foresight from Neotel then. Oh well.

Yes if it worked the way its supposed to, which it doesn't. You can get uncapped 384K ADSL + ADSL line rental for R350. Add an extra R131 for voice line rental (if you don't already have a Telkom line) and this will bring it to R480. Also, Neotel charges R80 per GB. ADSL costs are now between R15 and R30 per GB from tons of ISPs, and even less if you take uncapped. The costs can be as low as R2-R3 per GB.

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Yes but for her purposes (less than 2gb a month) it would still be the cheapest. I guess she'll just have to pludge on ADSL because 3G prices are still ridiculous.

i'm actually tracking this story, because i have an active issue with them about their CDMA network. about a month ago, it disappeared and since their EVDO network is so poor, i effectively lost service. when i called, i was told 'the CDMA base station has gone down', and so i gave them a day or so to get everything back up. the CDMA network never came back up (until today, actually, and counting), and in the many follow ups i had with them, they blamed the modem. it was only after the modem had been replaced with another and still no CDMA network, that we eventually started having realistic conversations about my problem.

yesterday, when i called, i was told that they did not offer a CDMA network for data users (!!!) and the call center agent was quite suprised to hear that it had been in use. apparently, someone is now looking into it, whatever that means.

so, weirdness is everywhere on this one.


d

Now I understand why the current Ad campaigns only push Voice - notice that they do not mention Data at all.

@Neotel
I'd like to know which packages are going to get the change over from CDMA??

And what will happen with the NeoGo device? I've had no problems with the device & the speeds are quite decent.

LOL

Just like when they allowed all Prime users to be upgraded to NeoFlex data.
What a joke!
Neotel's strategy is clearly to roll out a new product each year until we have funded their fiber network.
Where is our Data monitor that was promised 2 years ago!
Neotel will fail, very soon, unless they actually start to provide a service and provide some value to their customers.
My contract is almost done, you have a few more months left to impress me.
Other wise is Uncapped all the way forward.

This comment doesn't get my hopes up:
" I’m not fighting in the space where 10 000 extra subscribers will make or break my story.”"

Since your base is less than 50,000 consumers strong (although I think it's more like 35,000), I think it will pretty much break you my friend.
That's a 1/5 of your subscribers, LOL

The operator has fewer than 50 000 customers on its wireless network.

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that doesn't sound like a lot, but i may be mistaken.

At the same time, it is stepping up its roll-out of CDMA base stations, with East London, Port Elizabeth, Pietermaritzburg, Stellenbosch and Paarl set to get coverage this year. The company already covers parts of Gauteng, Cape Town and Durban.

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this is going to get messy and confusing for the consumer.

@rph72

check whether you're actually using the CDMA network at all - impression i got was that the CDMA network will be inaccessible to data users. obviously, if your service isn't reliant on it, then that won't affect you. the Neotel Call Center was reticent today on what exactly a 'higher-end retail customer' actually is. these mythical beasts will be migrated to WiMax, apparently - though, again, the impression i got was that this was in the planning stages and very far from any execution. as someone upstream pointed out, it has implications and it doesn't sound to me like anyone's thought these through.

to check what you're using, use either the Mobile Connect or Neo Data software provided with the device and under the Options menu change the network to CDMA-only, EVDO-only and Hybrid, in turn.(you have to do this while disconnected because the functions gray out when the connection is active.). connect normally under each setting and see what happens. if you're solely an EVDO user, you'll see that you can authenticate under the EVDO-only and Hybrid settings (which is really just EVDO then), but not under the CDMA-only setting. if this is the case, and you're happy with your connectivity, then you're good and will probably not be directly affected.

if you are connecting under CDMA-only as well, then it might be worth your while to perform a speed test, or download something under both the CDMA and EVDO settings and see what the difference is - if they are actually phasing CDMA out for data, and you are relying on it, then this will give you some idea of the possible degradation.

d

daelm said:

@rph72

check whether you're actually using the CDMA network at all - impression i got was that the CDMA network will be inaccessible to data users. obviously, if your service isn't reliant on it, then that won't affect you. the Neotel Call Center was reticent today on what exactly a 'higher-end retail customer' actually is. these mythical beasts will be migrated to WiMax, apparently - though, again, the impression i got was that this was in the planning stages and very far from any execution. as someone upstream pointed out, it has implications and it doesn't sound to me like anyone's thought these through.

to check what you're using, use either the Mobile Connect or Neo Data software provided with the device and under the Options menu change the network to CDMA-only, EVDO-only and Hybrid, in turn.(you have to do this while disconnected because the functions gray out when the connection is active.). connect normally under each setting and see what happens. if you're solely an EVDO user, you'll see that you can authenticate under the EVDO-only and Hybrid settings (which is really just EVDO then), but not under the CDMA-only setting. if this is the case, and you're happy with your connectivity, then you're good and will probably not be directly affected.

if you are connecting under CDMA-only as well, then it might be worth your while to perform a speed test, or download something under both the CDMA and EVDO settings and see what the difference is - if they are actually phasing CDMA out for data, and you are relying on it, then this will give you some idea of the possible degradation.

d

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I have noticed these settings & mine is on Hybrid. Will do a couple of speed tests on the different settings & see what the results are.

I am a bit confused by this. My understanding was that the datacard is a EVDO device which connects to the CDMA network. Is there a EVDO network as well?

@rph72

"check whether you're actually using the CDMA network at all - impression i got was that the CDMA network will be inaccessible to data users. obviously, if your service isn't reliant on it, then that won't affect you. the Neotel Call Center was reticent today on what exactly a 'higher-end retail customer' actually is. these mythical beasts will be migrated to WiMax, apparently - though, again, the impression i got was that this was in the planning stages and very far from any execution. as someone upstream pointed out, it has implications and it doesn't sound to me like anyone's thought these through.

to check what you're using, use either the Mobile Connect or Neo Data software provided with the device and under the Options menu change the network to CDMA-only, EVDO-only and Hybrid, in turn.(you have to do this while disconnected because the functions gray out when the connection is active.). connect normally under each setting and see what happens. if you're solely an EVDO user, you'll see that you can authenticate under the EVDO-only and Hybrid settings (which is really just EVDO then), but not under the CDMA-only setting. if this is the case, and you're happy with your connectivity, then you're good and will probably not be directly affected.

if you are connecting under CDMA-only as well, then it might be worth your while to perform a speed test, or download something under both the CDMA and EVDO settings and see what the difference is - if they are actually phasing CDMA out for data, and you are relying on it, then this will give you some idea of the possible degradation.

d"


Mate Don`t talk about something you dont know nothing about that just makes you look like an idiot.

First of all CDMA2000 (which are often referred to as simply "CDMA"), is the technology that neotel uses and refers both to 1X(CDMA as you know it on your data card) and EVDO..So if Neotel throughs out CDMA you wont get EVDO signal or CDMA signal at all on your data card.

CDMA stands for Code Division Multiple Access..AND THAT IS THE NETWORK NEOTEL RUNS ON.

So lets explain what the datacard means by CDMA signal. When the data card says CDMA it is basically a 1X signal (The stuff neotel uses mainly to transmit their Voice calls on and some but very little data.)

EVDO is the main carrier of data for the CDMA network the "high speed internet" traffic is transmitted on this carrier.

Hybrid just like the name suggest is a combination of the 2.

So why does your modem more redily pick up 1X signal?? Because it travels further and is less subject to interferance making it spead all over.

Bear in mind that 1X signal is slow internet basically dail up speeds.

If you want to educate yourself read up on wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_division_multiple_access

O and Neotel wont just jump ship on CDMA they have spent close to a Billion Rand already on building a CDMA network they wont just throw it out the window. They can however upgrade to LTE(4G) but thats still a matter of time before that happens

cool, thanks. actually, i was just passing on what i was told my field is usability, modelling and design, not networks and what i know about networks and telecomms is entirely limited to what i was told by a friend, when i started asking about Neotel's problems.

thanks for the clarification. i'll bear the advice in mind.

d

@macsystems

also, since you seem to know about this stuff, here's a question:

"when the data card says CDMA it is basically a 1X signal (The stuff neotel uses mainly to transmit their Voice calls on and some but very little data.). EVDO is the main carrier of data for the CDMA network the "high speed internet" traffic is transmitted on this carrier."

in my experience, until one month ago, speeds were significantly (noticeably) faster when the datacard was set to CDMA-only, by means of the management software. EVDO-only was significantly slower and quite erratic, often disconnecting. so, if i understand you right, that would mean that for 6 months the main carrier of data for the Neotel CDMA network was outperformed (carrying data) by their voice service. (or maybe the software that comes with the data card is incorrectly displaying the network). is that possible? or is something else going on?

i mean that as a genuine question, btw - i'm not being sarcastic. i figure that since Neotel has been of no help to me so far, i'd better try get to grips with this by asking people until i get enough information to make a call on it.


d