Neotel’s consumer plans
Neotel’s first consumer offering, called NeoConnect Prime, is starting to ship to selected customers in Johannesburg and Pretoria.
The company has come under significant pressure from consumers about delays in launching a consumer offering, but Neotel says that these delays were necessary to develop a product which attends to the concerns of residential and small business customers.
Neotel said that its product development cycle involved in-depth research about consumer demands and that it tested its product at every stage of development with potential customers.
The telecoms provider said that its research pointed to various key areas which need to be addressed, including:
- Low usage limits associated with current broadband offerings
- Ensuring an acceptable throughput and not simply promising high speeds
- Adding portability to its Internet and voice offering
- Ensuring a high quality voice service
- Very simple and effective way to purchase the service
- Great support
- Bringing true value to customers in terms of pricing and an all-in-one solution
- Making sure number portability is possible
As part of the product development process Neotel embarked on a long trial phase which started in July 2007. September 2007 saw the start of the external trial and the first Alpha service was launched in March 2008.
The service is introduced to the media and trial subscribers today, and consumers who have applied for the offering can expect to hear from Neotel in the coming days and weeks.
Neotel will officially launch the service commercially to the wider public towards the end of May.
The reason for this staged approach, said Neotel’s Maneesh Mittal, is not only to iron out all the potential bugs but to also manage expectations. This may be a particularly tricky issue as the Neotel NeoConnect service will first be available in Gauteng after which it will extend to the major cities like Cape Town and Durban and thereafter to the rest of the country.
Pricing and product offerings
Neotel has not released a tariff structure yet, but the company promised consumers that they will offer better value for money than current offerings in the market. They have indicated that users can also expect a significant improvement in usage limits associated with local broadband services.
Trial customers will initially pay R 499.00 per month for an unlimited NeoConnect Prime offering from the company, but this Mittal said will change as soon as the commercial products are launched.
Initial testing showed that the service performs within the 300 Kbps to 700 Kbps range – exactly as promised by Neotel – but more recent testing showed peak speeds of close to 2 Mbps to international destinations with many tests giving downlink speeds of around 1.5 Mbps.
Speeds were slow when accessing content on some local networks like Verizon Business but this is something which Neotel said will be addressed as it tries to eliminate all bottlenecks.
NeoConnect converged device
The system has a battery – similar to a mobile phone – and portability is a characteristic which certain consumers and small business owners may find attractive. (Neotel NeoConnect device parts and Neotel NeoConnect connected phone images)
Another advantage of the battery powered unit is that it works perfectly on a laptop during power outages, a definite advantage for customers without access to a generator or UPS to power their ADSL modem during load shedding.
The voice quality of the service is excellent. Numerous tests were performed and the results were consistently as good as any fixed line service. The same goes for the built-in SMS service.
One of the most attractive features of the service may be the ease and speed of acquiring the service and setting it up – assuming that Neotel will compliment its easy device setup and usage with a well oiled distribution channel.
The company said that consumers will be able to buy the service online, through their call centre and at partner outlets.
Neotel’s NeoConnect generally takes less than 5 minutes to set up, unless there is some unknown snag with the installation. In our experience it simply works.
Neotel said that it will provide consumers with world class customer service. So far the support has been good, but the real test will come when the company starts to grow its customer base.
One of the crucial factors to the company’s success may be number portability, and here Neotel says that its systems are in place to make this possible. Telkom is apparently still ironing out a few issues related to legacy systems, but Neotel is confident that users will be able to move between Telkom and Neotel with ease – keeping their existing number – in the near future.
Neotel seems well aware of what consumers want and developed a product which has the potential of addressing many of the most pressing concerns from the residential voice and Internet market.
The main concern from consumers however remains pricing. It’s a tricky hurdle to clear and it will be interesting to see how Neotel address this issue.
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