Neotel - The Contender (Financial Mail)

R

Random717

Expert Member
Joined
May 30, 2006
Messages
2,121
Reaction score
24
http://secure.financialmail.co.za/07/0504/cover/coverstory.htm

Neotel will compete with Telkom on price, Pandey insists, but that will not be the company's sole value proposition. He says residential subscribers will have access to a 24-hour call centre and won't have to wait to have a service installed. He also promises that in broadband, where prices are particularly high, Neotel will not "shy away from taking whatever steps are necessary" to win market share.

"People are waiting six months for ADSL [Telkom's fixed-line broadband] or for a phone line. I can't have a phone when I want one. People can't access call centres after 5 pm or 6 pm. Some of these things are obvious for me [to fix]. The incumbent will respond, for sure, but... all incumbents have grown when the market has been opened up."
Click to expand...

Pandey won't say how many customers Neotel hopes to sign up. He says the company will have a better idea once it has completed a pilot in Gauteng where it is constructing a network of base stations using a wireless technology called CDMA2000. The pilot will kick off in a month and will involve about 20 base stations.
Click to expand...

He says the next hurdle is getting cheap access to international bandwidth. Here, it is pursuing a number of options. The first involves using the Sat-3 submarine cable that links SA with Europe. Telkom has exclusive access to the Sat-3 landing station but that should change soon with new regulations on the cards that would declare the station an essential facility.

In the longer term, Neotel is considering investing in two new submarine cables that would run along Africa's east coast. Construction of the first, the East Africa Submarine System, or Eassy, is expected to start soon. The second cable system, known as Seacom, is backed by US private equity group Blackstone.
Click to expand...
 
If I had a gigabyte for every "Wait and see..." press release that is word ****ed by some ISP or the other I'd be able to download the internet by now.
 
At least give 'em a chance. I'm as p1ssed off as the next person that this has taken so long but wouldn't a price war right at the beginning just kill Neotel off?
 
IBIWISI and all that ... but this sounds pretty good in principle.

Much still depends on ICASA getting LLU and SAT3 right.

I like that they will concentrate on data initially rather than voice. Data-over-voice-lines is so archaic. VoIP is the way to go forward - give the user data first and give them a box to plug phone into for voice calls. Tie a phone number to that user and they can receive calls too. Moving house? Just take the box with you.

Also good that they will offer fibre. Even if it is only to businesses at the moment, it's nice to see someone in the industry thinking ahead for a change, whereas Telkom stopped thinking altogether about a decade ago.
 
I thought they were going to say something. Damn, I'm a dumb ass.

Hey, at least East London is on the map. hehe
 
The article also mentions that the initial cdma network will only be used for basic data (e-mail etc) as bandwith is limited to 3 mb/s for all users in the basestation footprint. Wimax will be used for advanced data so it seems we will have to wait some time for worthwhile data offerings.
 
In my opinion all I read here is: Telkom is our friend, we will plot together to create a duopoly in the country, and rip you all bigger ones. Telscum and us sleep in the same bed, and it is made-up by the consumer. Why make less money if the Gov (read ICASA) will let us make more money and rape the country even further. Mwhahaha egg on all your faces, we want more money, and so does Telscum. PS: We have also employed Telscums spin doctors to fool you all into believeing us.
 
Rudolph Muller, who runs MyADSL, a popular online forum for broadband users, says Neotel will have to be aggressive with its pricing if it wants to gain traction in the market. The company will have to offer better broadband prices, high monthly bandwidth allowances, better download speeds and free voice call bundles.
Click to expand...

I wish rpm was in charge. :(
 
Dahiya emphasises that CDMA2000 is not an ideal broadband solution as it supports only 3 Mbit/s per base station, and this bandwidth has to be shared by all users within tower range.
Click to expand...

Did he just say, "per base station"?

F@k me! :eek:

Didn't this guy say atleast 1Mbps per user?
 
Last edited:
Neotel has all my hopes and dreams on their shoulders... I would hate to be disappointed... But I have my fingers crossed... GO NEOTEL!!!!!
 
Lycanthrope said:
Neotel has all my hopes and dreams on their shoulders... I would hate to be disappointed... But I have my fingers crossed... GO NEOTEL!!!!!
Click to expand...

Yes, and the team at Neotel have telecoms backgrounds. The CEO has 20 years telecoms experience. Papi came from a company that had nothing to do with telecoms.
 
56kMan said:
Yes, and the team at Neotel have telecoms backgrounds. The CEO has 20 years telecoms experience. Papi came from a company that had nothing to do with telecoms.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was going through their site and saw the main guys and the little bit that was said about all them. I don't know all that much about them really, but the fact that Neotel has responded to every e-mail I've sent them within a few hours and have been wonderfully polite has definitely left me with a great impression. And the head guys seem like they know what they're doing.

Like I said, Neotel has my vote, if nothing else, their customer service and their amazing demeanour has captivated me. Telkom already costs me an arm and a leg, I have no problem switching over to Neotel even if all it does is save me a few bucks, hell, even if it's a few bucks more, their customer service won me over.

Nothing is worse than sitting on the phone with Telkom for over an hour just trying to ask POLITELY for another account...
 
Last edited:
Hi guys,

I really recommend going out tomorrow and getting a copy of the FM at your nearest CNA. This is not a sales pitch. It's just that what you're reading on the Web is not the whole package that we've produced.

Duncan
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X