New Neotel data service here soon
Neotel launched their NeoConnect consumer voice and data services earlier this year, bumping up the default usage allowance to 10 GB per month and throwing in free voice minutes and SMSs.
While the service was welcomed by some consumers, others felt that they needed a data-only service with an Ethernet enabled device.
Neotel took heed of this call from the more tech-savvy community and will soon launch its multi-user data offering based on an Ethernet and Wi-Fi enabled CDMA router. The new device has 4 Ethernet ports, supports 802.11 b/g WiFi and has a built-in backup battery (Neotel Ethernet device image here).
The router is based on CDMA Rev A technology which has theoretical downlink speeds of up to 3.1 Mbps and uplink speeds of up to 1.8 Mbps. Neotel however pointed out that consumers can expect real world downlink speeds of 450 – 900 Kbps and upload speeds of between 300 and 700 Kbps.
In live testing at a Neotel event the service and router performed well, with local download speeds of between 1.8Mbps and 3Mbps and upload speeds in the region of 600Kbps to 900Kbps.
International download speeds ranged between 150Kbps and 2.2Mbps while international upload speeds were typically around 200Kbps to 400Kbps. International latency ranges between 300ms and 500ms while local ping times ranged between 80ms and 180ms.
This service will be a data only service with usage limits similar to the NeoConnect offerings. It is however unlikely that there will be an uncapped service, but Neotel’s Executive Head of the Consumer Business, Mukul Sharma, promised aggressive data pricing.
According to Sharma the service will be available ‘very soon – definitely before the end of the year’.
Neotel data offering discussion
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