Neotel ‘changing SA broadbrand market’
Neotel has launched its services commercially, and with this the company says that it is already radically changing the SA market with connectivity offerings the likes of which the country has never seen before.
That’s according to Stefano Mattiello, executive head of enterprise sales at Neotel. "Where broadband is concerned, the three primary issues are capacity, cost and service availability," he states.
Capacity might be vanilla, but it is something of a foundation for service delivery – and Mattiello says what South Africans are receiving today under the auspices of ’broadband’ is simply just faster Internet.
"The connectivity available to even those companies that can afford a fast link are, frankly, trifling. We’re talking small numbers like a 2MB leased line," he says.
And for all the hype, 3G and HSDPA are not particularly fast connections at all, he adds.
With somewhere between 12,000 and 13,000 kilometres of fibre in the ground across SA, Mattiello explains that Neotel is delivering access to 1GB of capacity to any client, anywhere in the country.
That’s not all. Neotel’s network is the only true next-generation network (NGN) in the country, fully Internet Protocol-enabled, he adds. "This is by design. Neotel has purposely invested in a full NGN; Internet connectivity at these speeds is merely the base on top of which we offer virtual private network (VPN) and, of course, carrier class voice," says Mattiello.
In fact, the all-IP network means it is geared for the delivery of services which go well beyond raw connectivity – converged communications in the true sense of the word.
He adds that with its own international node (which links SA to the rest of the Internet world), there will be no ’slowdown’ in connectivity, which most local users have come to accept. "Most traffic is international – but with a single node presently shared between the various local service providers at present, overseas performance is not great."
What that means in simple terms, is that an 800MB file can be downloaded in five minutes. It sounds unlikely, but Mattiello says this is exactly what Neotel means when it talks broadband.
And this is just the beginning. "With the extension of the Seacom undersea cable partnership, Neotel is landing a further 1.2TB of capacity for international connectivity," he continues. That connectivity is scheduled to come on line in 2009.
"This is precisely the type of bandwidth we are going to need to meet the requirements for 2010 to allow for the likes of HDTV, and we are already putting the platform in place to meet these international needs."
The cost of connectivity remains a burning issue for most SA businesses. Mattiello says because the company is introducing such ’radically different’ options for communications, it won’t be competing directly with any operator, and therefore won’t be drawn into a price war.
"On top of that, our value proposition revolves around understanding the needs of business and creating communications solutions based on those needs," he says.
And where service is concerned, Mattiello confirms that Neotel has a window of opportunity on which it cannot compromise. "Telecommunications customers may be accustomed to playing the waiting game, but it is no secret that nobody enjoys playing that game. It might be a business basic, but we intend to show up and meet client needs. We want to do business as a proper business does," he says.
Loading ...