Neotel prices unchanged
Neotel said yesterday that it would not increase its current prices despite Telkom’s recent announcement that it would hike prices on many of its services.
Telkom said that prices on analogue line rental, call rates, ISDN rentals, Closer plans and various other services would increase in August – something which understandable did not go down well with consumers.
Many consumers expected the company to reduce ADSL rates to compete more favourably with Neotel and other broadband providers, but Telkom kept its broadband prices unchanged.
This means that Telkom remains more expensive than the wireless broadband providers for lower usage monthly usage limits while it is much more expensive than Neotel on higher usage limits and bundled services.
When it comes to call rates Neotel is also cheaper than Telkom.
From August Telkom will charge 38c a minute for local calls while this rate will drop to 18.6c a minute in callmore time. The minimum charge for local calls also increases from the current 59.4 c to 65c.
Telkom’s rate for long distance calls remain at 65c a minute during standard time and 32.5c during callmore time. The rate to mobile phones also remains the same at R1.89 a minute during standard time and R1.17 after hours.
Compare this to Neotel’s rates of local call rates of 17c a minute and national call rates of 43c a minute and it is not difficult to see that Neotel is significantly cheaper than Telkom.
The added advantage of true per-second billing and no minimum call charges mean that users stand to save on their monthly telephone bill.
Neotel is also cheaper than Telkom for Neotel-to-Telkom calls despite the fact that Neotel has to pay interconnection fees to Telkom for these calls while they are on-net for Telkom.
Neotel charges 34c per minute for local calls to Telkom numbers and 17c a minute off-peak. This is cheaper than Telkom’s 38c and 18.6c for the same. There is also no minimum call charge from Neotel which is associated with Telkom’s local calls.
Neotel’s 53c and 33c for peak and off-peak national calls to Telkom numbers is also cheaper than Telkom’s 65c and 32.5c when incorporating Telkom’s minimum call charges. The same goes for Neotel’s R1.76 and R1.09 for calls to mobile phones during peak and off-peak times.
The biggest benefit to prospective Neotel clients may, however, not be the reduced call rates or more affordable Internet offerings, but the ease of getting connected and using the Neotel consumer service.
Telkom’s decision to increase its prices may yet to come back to haunt the company, given that Neotel continues to expand its network, market its consumer offerings aggressively and back it all up with good customer service.
Neotel/Telkom pricing discussion
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