Neotel on a growth journey
Neotel has finally arrived. It has taken some time for South Africa’s second network operator to get up to speed, but now the company is introducing one service after the other. The first enterprise customers were connected last year. In May this year Neotel launched its consumer services in Johannesburg and Pretoria, followed closely by Cape Town and Durban.
Neotel MD and COO, Ajay Pandey refers to the past two years as a journey of growth. Celebrating its second birthday at the end of August, the company now employs over 900 people and has offices in all major centres of its coverage area and a presence at Postnet outlets where customers can order Neotel services.
Speaking to journalists at a media briefing recently, Pandey said that the company currently has a presence in 180 of the 360 South African top companies. "On the consumer side we started in May with 22 base stations in the Johannesburg/Pretoria area which, during the past few months, has doubled to 44. Consumer services are now also available in parts of Cape Town and Durban.
"A base station covers an area of roughly one to one and a half kilometres. We limit services to this footprint to ensure that we meet customers’ high quality expectations, he said. "Base station roll-out is exponential, greatly increasing our coverage areas."
Neotel is South Africa’s first truly converged network offering voice and data on one network. The company delivers it services using different technologies. Enterprise customers are served by fibre cable or WiMAX connections while consumer services are delivered using CDMA.
The first WiMAX connections were launched in July delivering multiplay enterprise services. "Just the speed of deployment of wireless technologies means that we can install in the minimum of time," Rajeev Sinha, head: products and solutions said. "Add to that the scalability of the product which allows the customer to increase their bandwidth with no physical intervention and the ability for true multiplay, data, internet and voice; we have a truly winning combination." Enterprise Wireless offers companies another choice of connectivity. Where no fibre to the curb is available, wireless services can fill the gap, either permanently or until a fibre connection becomes available. Where customers have smaller bandwidth requirements, less than 2 Mbps, wireless becomes a suitable alternative to fibre.
Neotel uses two technologies in providing enterprise wireless last mile access, WiMAX 802.16D and VectaStar using the 3,5 and 10,5 GHz bands. The inherent advantage of wireless is that its will take Neotel only seven days to install.
The latest development in Neotel’s enterprise business is number-portability with Telkom. The first block of numbers has been successfully ported from Telkom. While they are currently still executing the test cases to check routing, billing, etc., it is a massive step toward giving South African corporate customers the freedom to choose their telecommunications services.
"We have been working very closely with Telkom to put the necessary systems in place for geographic number-portability," says Stefano Mattiello, executive head: Enterprise Group at Neotel. "The impact on the customer is enormous as it now allows them the flexibility of choosing the best service provider to meet their needs, while retaining the number that their customers have come to know."
According to Mattiello, the process of portability is completely seamless, making it much easier for the customer. "During the porting process, the numbers will be advertised on both the Telkom and Neotel networks for 48 hours to allow for a smooth transition and ensure that all calls continue to be routed without interruption."
Mattiello says the next generation network Neotel has deployed has inherent number-portability capabilities. "This means that we have not needed to deploy any additional technologies and therefore it has been much easier for us to get to this stage," he concludes.
On the consumer side Neotel offers a CMA EV DO phone developed by Du Pont Telecoms. The phone was developed to Neotel’s specification and incorporates voice and an internet connection. In addition, the phone features caller ID, call hold, speed dials, phonebook and SMS functionality. The phone offers data rates of up to 2, 4 Mbps downlink and up to 153, 6 Mbps uplink. It is battery-backed up so it will not be affected by interruption in the mains supply.
One of the disappointments is that the phone doesn’t include an Ethernet port to connect to a home LAN. "We designed this product with customers in mind who still use a dial-up connections to the internet," Dr. Angus Hay, chief technology officer, said. "Ethernet ports chew up power and would require a more substantial power back-up. We are working with various vendors to develop a suitable device and hope to launch an Ethernet option soon".
While CDMA offers mobility, Neotel has not enabled hand-over between cells as that would infringe their licence conditions. One can however take the phone to any other cell and use it there.
Neotel has also built a network operations centre (NOC) which monitors the network on a 24 X 7 basis. The NOC was built by Nokia Siemens Networks which also has the maintenance and training contact. The 75 technicians manning the NOC have been trained by Siemens Nokia Networks and continue to receive over the shoulder assistance for the next few months.
"All our services are proactively monitored. We often deal with a problem long before the customer becomes aware of it," Mattiello said.
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