Is Neotel for real?

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rpm

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Is Neotel for real?

Neotel is seen by many as the telecom saviour in South Africa, the company that will make access to broadband more economically accessible! When I had the opportunity to interview Neotel’s MD, Ajya Pandey, in October 2006 he told me “A price war is not for us”
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“We are already doing something for retail customers but with a wholesale layer in between. It is a question whether the wholesalers are passing the benefits we offer to the end customer. However our direct interaction with the retail market is not very far off. We are planning for the first quarter of 2007.”
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Really? Then why haven't they engaged with iBurst on interconnect contracts. My word, how big do you have to be (according to Neotel) to be considered a retail customer?
 
Saw this on Wikipedia.org:

South Africa: Neotel has been awarded 800 mHz Spectrum by ICASA and will launch CDMA2000 services later this year.
 
I still believe in Neotel and I will continue to do so :D I'm starting to think that it might have been a better idea for them to sneak into the country, set everything up on the sly and then finally announce when they were completely ready.
 
Hans van de Groenendaal has a talent for writing very patronising, irritating drivel. And he manages to do it without adding anything that's remotely newsworthy.
 
AntiThesis said:
I still believe in Neotel and I will continue to do so :D I'm starting to think that it might have been a better idea for them to sneak into the country, set everything up on the sly and then finally announce when they were completely ready.
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i agree
 
Whilst they aren't offering retail services as of yet, I was wondering if anyone on these forums has dealt with Neotel or currently makes use of their wholesale or enterprise services. It would be interesting to read some comments on these services and their current support desk.
 
Yes, and when Neotel do finally launch South Africans will be hooking their laptops up to their exercise bikes while trying to access mypower.co.za...
 
What's wrong with you people - of course Neotel is real! So is Santa, the easter bunny and the tooth fairy!
 
in that case, maybe eskom should send santa a letter telling him how naughty all their employees have been. then we might not be loadshed anymore
 
I spoke to a dude at Neotel today. Well, after reading the article on MyAdsl I thought I would phone and try my luck. Well honestly, which is sad, I was not suprised when I was told that their services would be released in the first quarter this year. I told the guy the first quarter was over and he then told me the first half. *sigh*

And just to make things worse, my area is not covered by Neotel so if/ when they do come alive it ain't gonna help me at all anyway :(

damn you cruel world!!!!!
 
WARNING: Hans van de Groenendaal article detected.

Take everything said with a pinch of salt.
 
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By the time they roll out llu might be inswing and then the cdma thing allows them to take on cell companies, rural and no copper theft. They have their bread buttered on all sides. It wont supprise me if they roll out properly in 2009 after cables land only.
 
Krycor, they will probably only roll out true BB after June 2009 because of lack of international capacity for true BB. But lets be honest, its takes time to get anything done in SA. Even if Neotel had access to 3000 engineers and technicians, they still face a problem of supply of cable, fast enough access to land to dig up the cable, acquiring land to put up towers, etc (and that is not to mention all the ICASA and DOC delays). All of this takes place in a global shortage of all these things - thus often long lead times in acquiring the equipment. In the end, you can only go as fast as the slowest process / smallest bottleneck.

Even MTN and Vodacom took a long time to roll out their networks - how long, from acquiring the technology, did it take MTN and Vodacom to roll out their 3G and HSDPA networks?
 
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