Neotel: State of the operator and plans for the future
Neotel’s consumer Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) based services were made available to the average consumer in 2008, two years after Neotel launched.
Their target for consumer penetration was 50 000 subscribers by the end of 2009, but according to Ajay Panday, MD and CEO of Neotel, their current consumer subscriber count sits just under that mark.
When asked about the delay in achieving their goal, Panday revealed that they had challenges with acquiring permissions to build base stations fast enough. He said that the delay in obtaining site and environmental clearances prevented them from moving as fast as they’d have liked.
To speed up deployment they have partnered with Vodacom and MTN to co-locate sites, Panday said.
While Panday confirmed that Neotel has been moving their high-end users from CDMA to WiMAX, he couldn’t provide clarity on the pricing of Neotel’s CDMA offering. According to Panday, Neotel has already passed on the cost savings caused by the extra competition in the undersea cable market (SEACOM) to the end user by increasing the “bang for buck” on the CDMA data offering.
Panday reiterated his previous comments that savings, such as potential decreases in interconnect rates, must be passed on to the customer.
He added that Neotel would be making a significant announcement regarding their prepaid services in the next two weeks.
Questioned about their current services and expansion thereon, Panday said that Neotel currently has just under 300 CDMA and 85 WiMAX towers. He also said that Neotel is planning on launching WiMAX-based consumer services.
Panday disclosed that he would love to make use of the copper network currently operated by Telkom should local loop unbundling (LLU) happen.
Asked about where he would place the sweet spot for low-end broadband pricing, Panday indicated that people would pay a fair price for a service they really wanted.
The nomenclature of “broadband” has been abused in South Africa, according to Panday, and mentioned that the next big development in Internet use is video, which will require connections of at least 512kbps.
Neotel: State of the operator and plans for the future << Comments and views
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