Will Neotel launch within our lifetime?
Speaking at the BMI-T Digital Cities Forum, Neotel’s Angus Hay was bluntly asked by a local telecoms analyst: “Will you launch within our lifetime?”
Neotel has reneged on several of its previous launch deadlines, especially in the residential broadband and voice arena.
Telkom’s competitor initially planned to launch residential Internet and voice services in late 2006, but moved that date forward to March/April 2007 and later to the middle of the year. More recent estimates from the company indicated September as a launch date, but that cut-off date came and went without an explanation from the second national operator.
Hay said that Neotel has decided not to give specific launch dates any more, but said that residential Internet and voice services are currently being trialed internally and will be extended to consumers ‘soon’.
Hay further promised, tongue in cheek, that Neotel will launch services well within everyone’s lifetime.
Better quality of service
Neotel was also quizzed by the audience on their planned levels of service. They were specifically asked whether they will simply aim to improve on Telkom’s service levels – described as being abysmal by a telecoms analyst – or look at international standards.
Hay said that Neotel will definitely look at international service levels and will aim to provide consumers with superior quality offerings.
Pricing and speeds
Hay further said that their technology choice – namely CDMA 2000 – should make it possible for the company to provide low cost voice services and low cost-per-bit data offerings.
Hay pointed out that CDMA provides peak speeds of 3.1 Mbps, and that end-users can realistically expect average speeds of around 600 to 700 Kbps. These speeds are however seen as a basic voice and fast Internet service by Neotel, and the company does have plans to launch a ‘true broadband’ offering using WiMax.
Hay said that one of the biggest challenges in future will be to ensure average broadband speeds of multiple Mbps, currently not very prevalent in our highly contended broadband environment.
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