Neotel partners with wireless providers to increase broadband access

[jes]

Neotel partners with wireless providers to increase broadband access

Neotel and the Wireless Access Providers’ Association of SA partner to bring broadband access to South Africans

[Beri]

when will this be available? are they going to improve their footprint

[Shake&Bake]

So a backtrack on something they started with in 2010? I wouldn't bother with these cronies....

[Bern]

What stops them from doing this now - just buy a Neofibre link and use that for backhaul instead of ADSL like most of them do now. Is Neotel offering a different deal for them or what - some details please!

[SharkBait]

who are these wireless providers?

[fragtion]

This is the sort of news that, against all imaginable odds, makes me happy to still be a Telkom customer. Neotel are contracting a WISP to provide their last mile residential coverage? LOL!!! Why don't they take some of the profit they've made from all the businesses fibre connections and deploy their own last-mile network to finally compete with Telkom in the fixed-line market as we all thought they'd be doing as the fully-licensed SNO, in the first place? Oh right, because it's far cheaper to liaison with a crappy WISP at the expense of the customer's service quality. Wow, you'd think they'd have learned by now after failing dismally with WCDMA. Hehe, no thanks, I'll pass... xD

[Boerewors]

I am a client of one of these providers and they are doing it already. I stay in a very remote area where the provider bounces the signal to my roof so I can have Internet. It is pretty reliable (as long as Neotel link stays up). Of course the cost is substantially more than having an ADSL line, but that is somewhat to be expected, since the provider has to setup towers and infrastructure etc.

Still, I wish I had ADSL options, paying R650 a month for 60/ks download uncapped or R250 a gig at 1mbs is pretty steep compared to ADSL.

Just to add: Telskelm refuses to place ADSL in my exchange, Vodascum refuses to upgrade the tower here to 3G or even to upgrade it so I can get more than a random 0-2 bar coverage, so yeah, the wireless provider pretty much has me by the short and curlies and can ask whatever they want.

[eddief1]

This is the sort of news that, against all imaginable odds, makes me happy to still be a Telkom customer. Neotel are contracting a WISP to provide their last mile residential coverage? LOL!!! Why don't they take some of the profit they've made from all the businesses fibre connections and deploy their own last-mile network to finally compete with Telkom in the fixed-line market as we all thought they'd be doing as the fully-licensed SNO, in the first place? Oh right, because it's far cheaper to liaison with a crappy WISP at the expense of the customer's service quality. Wow, you'd think they'd have learned by now after failing dismally with WCDMA. Hehe, no thanks, I'll pass... xD

I think your comment above shows your lack of knowledge regarding the technology these guys use. You simply can't compare it to 6 years ago. We run a wireless network around our area, if you do it properly and spend the money they are highly reliable and I can honestly say it has been way more reliable than the Telkom infrastructure in our area. 1.5years and the only downtime has been from upgrades and config changes.

Now tell me what other providers can provide me with a 10Mbps (or higher) VPN connection between offices with a 1-3ms latency for under R2k. We move terabytes over these links.

If you can give the WISP decent internet backhaul (Fibre) you have a pretty efficient and cheap system to provide internet access. If you as a WISP can backhaul your highsites with either fibre and gbps microwave then well you are in a position to kill telkom and compete with the likes of Vodacom etc in your area. The only guys above you are the companies providing FTTx

WISP's if done properly are serious players at the moment, the technology is maturing, speeds are increasing and life is good for these boys.

Hell I will take a 1Mbps uncapped connection straight into the Neotel network for under R400.00...would you ?

[dagelf]

This is the sort of news that, against all imaginable odds, makes me happy to still be a Telkom customer. Neotel are contracting a WISP to provide their last mile residential coverage? LOL!!! Why don't they take some of the profit they've made from all the businesses fibre connections and deploy their own last-mile network to finally compete with Telkom in the fixed-line market as we all thought they'd be doing as the fully-licensed SNO, in the first place? Oh right, because it's far cheaper to liaison with a crappy WISP at the expense of the customer's service quality. Wow, you'd think they'd have learned by now after failing dismally with WCDMA. Hehe, no thanks, I'll pass... xD

Surely you mean "Telkom Employee"? Don't worry, your secret is safe out here on the internet where the majority of South Africans still can't see it.

[rph72]

What happened to this project? Is Neotel still testing?

[rph72]

Seems that WiFibre is the first WISP:
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthre...10#post9089110

Where can we get info of other WISP providers providing the same service for the Cape Town area?

[portcullis]

There must be at least 10 of us who've been purchasing from Neotel for more than a year. I understand one of our hotspot users posted something in this thread yesterday.

[rph72]

There must be at least 10 of us who've been purchasing from Neotel for more than a year. I understand one of our hotspot users posted something in this thread yesterday.

I'm in Goodwood. No Cape Connect coverage there.