When Neotel thought it was the only opposition to Telkom, it must have been surprised when Screamer Telecoms opened its doors in mid- January, offering a complete range of voice, data and internet services at highly competitive prices.<\/p>\n
The company has been building a WiMAX network covering the greater Johannesburg and Pretoria area for the past two years without alarming the two incumbents. Roll-out is continuing at a fast pace, covering new areas almost daily. "I guess because the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) was not allocating WiMAX spectrum no one was particularly concerned that a possibility of another operator would arise", said Gavin Hart, CEO of Screamer Telecoms.<\/p>\n
"We took a huge risk investing in a network without having a electronic communication network services (ECNS) licence. Our legal team worked on the premise that given the ICT Act, liberalisation and new licences it would be just a matter of time. The gamble was how long? To our surprise it happed sooner than we expected. We received our ECNS licence in mid-January and with our WiMAX network in an advanced stage of development, we were able to start offering services immediately." Currently the company operates from 350 high-sites around South Africa, which means it can provide services in an area more than seven times the size of the Kruger National Park (i.e. 134 000 km²).<\/p>\n
The question on industry’s lips is: Where did Screamer Telecoms get WiMAX spectrum as Icasa is still sorting out how it will be allocating WiMAX frequency slots? Gavin Hart confirmed that the company has access to 15 MHz in the 2,5 GHz band. <\/p>\n
"We are subbing from a company that has spectrum but is not able to use it at this time". The question in the industry is: from whom? "Mum is the word", says Hart. "We have a non-disclosure agreement and will honour that." How much the spectrum is costing Screamer is another closely-guarded secret. "Until Icasa finalises it WiMAX frequency spectrum process and we can bid on the open market for our own slice, we will not disclose any information other than to say that we have beaten many hopefuls to market".<\/p>\n
Screamer’s development places a new perspective on WiMAX. There are still many in the industry who believe that there is too much WiMAX hype and too little progress. "We had our share of technical hitches but one would expect that with a new technology", Hart said. "But now that we have ironed out the hitches and above all have taken our engineers to an advanced technical level in respect of WiMAX, it is a solid network that delivers wireless services effectively and efficiently at speeds up to 4 MB and sub 80 ms latency if tuned correctly.<\/p>\n
"Additionally, Screamer Telecoms has invested R50-million in a network control centre that monitors the network 24 x 7 and a state-of-the-art data centre for its corporate clients. Any network problems are quickly sorted out before the customer is even aware of it".<\/p>\n
Screamer Telecoms came about when a group of entrepreneurs realised the potential for another telecoms company and took the risk of deploying a network in the anticipation of receiving an ECNS licence. Instead of starting from scratch they acquired the largest WiFi network deployed in SA by purchasing Global WebIntact, a wireless internet service provider. The objective was to upgrade and stabilise the WiFi network in areas that were sparsely populated and deploy WiMax in the more densely populated and business centric areas. This has been done with remarkable success throughout Johannesburg and Pretoria and the company now boasts coverage of most of South Africa north of Harrismith, Free State.<\/p>\n
Now that their business model and technical teams have proven ability in this area they intend deploying their telecoms model throughout SA in the near future. "We are not committing to dates as we have seen the backlash that occurs when promises and hype are made and not met", says Hart. "Our aim is to offer economic alternatives in the telecoms market and we have achieved that. Apart from offering internet, e-mail and telephone connections at cut rate prices we have also compiled packages of these three main products that are typically used by singles, families and small businesses. When bought as a package, these offer huge discounts compared to what the SA telecoms consumer has been used to over the last 20 years."<\/p>\n
The state-of-the-art wireless system offers the opportunity to reliably link up an entire business network. The transmission network is primarily microwave with built-in redundancy and automatic alternate routing. The access network in the more heavily populated areas of South Africa is WiMAX and in the sparsely populated areas WiFi is used.<\/p>\n
Screamer’s main data centre and network control centre is based in Centurion, Gauteng, allowing the company to support most of its network inhouse. The company has also developed a reseller and branch scheme where small entrepreneurs sell and maintain services in smaller outlying and less densely populated areas.<\/p>\n
"We are so confident about our superior service, speeds and latencies that we do not insist on onerous 24-month contracts and all our contracts are on a month to month basis. If we or our network do not perform a customer can cancel. Our broadband is unshaped and is fibre-based with satellite only as a back-up. This means that low latencies are just perfect for gamers. The customer can decide what speeds he wants his capped packages provisioned at. WiMAX can easily achieve download speeds in excess of 4 MB. We offer the lowest uncapped WiMAX package rates in the industry". <\/p>\n