Neotel Dejavu
Early days
South Africa’s Second National Operator Neotel was licensed in December 2005. Their official launch a few months later was accompanied by much pomp and fanfare as they promised to break Telkom’s stranglehold on the local telecoms arena.
Initially simply known as the SNO, the company’s Managing Director Ajay Pandey said that the company is planning to launch consumer services for the broader public in the first quarter of 2007.
When quizzed about the missed deadline in April 2007, Pandey said that the ‘last 100 days had been a time where Neotel concluded various negotiations, signed agreements and received the much needed 800 MHz spectrum to launch services’.
“The next 100 days will be a time where Neotel starts launching services and consolidates on the progress made in the first part of 2007,” Pandey said.
The Neotel MD further said that they were on track for a Mid-2007 launch, but then pushed this date back to late 2007 after very little happened by July 2007.
Neotel did launch an ‘internal trial’ towards the end of 2007, but no commercial services were launched as promised.
Latest announcements
At the MyADSL Broadband conference last year Neotel’s Angus Hay announced that the company’s double-play service will be made available to the market in the first quarter of 2008 in two flavors – High Speed Internet Access, Voice and SMS and a Basic Internet Access, Voice and SMS service.
The Neotel website also states that its “converged services featuring high speed Internet with carrier-grade voice are due for commercial availability in early 2008. Neotel's true broadband services are also planned for introduction in 2008.”
The latest announcement from Panday however sheds doubt on a commercial launch before the end of March 2008. The Times reported that Pandey said that they would ‘announce a consumer offering within 100 days.’
It is not clear whether Pandey merely refers to an announcement of a potential service offering or to an actual commercial launch of their consumer services. The promise of action within 100 days also smacks of a similar promise made by Pandey nearly a year ago.
Towards the end of last year MyBroadband was also promised an opportunity to test the company’s new residential offering, but when the time arrived in early 2008 Neotel did not feel comfortable with official testing for the purpose of reporting performance to the public. This may be a sign that the service is nowhere near ready for a commercial launch.
Neotel was asked for comment regarding Pandey’s latest statements and the potential launch of its commercial residential services in the next month or two, but the company did not respond to requests for feedback.
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