Neotel’s WiMax and Fibre plans
Neotel has successfully concluded its residential CDMA offering trial and will soft launch its commercial Fast Internet, Voice and SMS offering later this month.
The company will initially concentrate on the major metro poles – Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban – and extend its coverage and service offerings as time progresses.
One of the issues dogging other wireless broadband providers like Vodacom and MTN is the lack of backhaul bandwidth, a problem Neotel does not have.
Maneesh Mittal, Neotel’s Head of Consumer Products and Services, says that most of Neotel’s CDMA towers are served by fiber backhaul links.
Mittal further pointed out that there may be some cases where a fiber link to the tower is not possible, but Neotel ensures that the backhaul capacity is always greater than the total tower capacity.
WiMax and Fibre
Neotel’s new Executive Head of its Consumer Business Unit, Mukul Sharma, says that while CDMA based services are first in the offing, the company is also developing a roadmap for its WiMax services and fixed line offerings.
Sharma said that WiMax based broadband products may be available before the end of 2008 and that this technology will be employed to provide a user experience to customers who may need something other than the company’s CDMA offerings.
WiMax has the advantage of built-in quality of service, something which may provide an enhanced user experience and is a prerequisite for some corporate applications.
Neotel is also looking at wired technologies – typically fiber to the premise – to make the most of its extensive fiber backbone.
Sharma said that the company is currently looking at the way in which it can best utilize its 10 Gbps backbone, and this is likely to involve wired services to consumers in future.
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