Faltering at first jump
I WAS LUCKY ENOUGH to be given a Neotel phone to play with. And while quite impressed with the quality, of the network in terms of speed and voice quality the same can’t be said for the handset itself. On the surface it looks nice enough: an LCD display so you can see incoming numbers and know what you have dialled. You can even send and receive SMSs from it.
It even has nice big buttons, so those with fading eyesight will be able to dial with ease. Neotel says it conducted extensive market research – and that may just be the problem: it feels like a product designed by a committee. The biggest issue is that the only way to connect the phone to your PC – and therefore your PC to the Internet – is through USB. That means if you want to share the Internet connection with more than one PC, or if you want to use a wireless home network, you have to go through a real song and dance.
First you need to have a Windows PC that’s turned on and connected via USB to the phone. Second, that PC needs to be connected to your home network and have Internet connection sharing turned on. You’re essentially running two PCs, so you can use one – and that doesn’t make sense.
The clients that Neoconnect Prime service is aimed at – existing broadband users (some of them heavy users) – would in all likelyhood already have some sort of home network. They’re unlikely to sacrifice their existing infrastructure just for the pleasure of not having to use Telkom.
If Neotel wants existing broadband users to switch it had better pretty quickly come up with an access device that’s either Ethernet-based or WiFi-enabled. Adding a cordless handset would also be a step in the right direction. I may forgive Neotel for getting it wrong the first time, but this phone makes its entire service a non-starter in my eyes.
Finweek
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