Neotel expands coverage

Neotel is aggressively expanding its coverage area, and is set to double its base stations in Gauteng within the next 30 days, says MD Ajay Pandey.

This morning, Neotel officially unveiled its consumer services, which the ICT industry has been eagerly awaiting since the company was licensed as a second national operator more than a year ago.

Pandey says Neotel's roll-out will be phased, with the initial roll-out of services taking place in Johannesburg, Pretoria and parts of Ekurhuleni.

"We are, however, expanding our network at a rapid pace and will be able to roll-out services in Cape Town and Durban shortly," he adds.

Neotel's consumer offering, NeoConnect, is built on CDMA technology, a telecoms technology which is growing rapidly in popularity across the African continent, says Mukul Sharma, executive head of Neotel's consumer business unit.

Converged voice and data offerings range from a 2.5GB product, costing R399 per month, to an unlimited bandwidth offering, priced at R999 per month, he says.

Customers who do not have a PC and do not want Internet access can also take NeoConnect Lite, a basic voice/SMS offering, costing R299 per month, says Sharma.

All products are subject to a 24-month contract. However, consumers can terminate their contract if they pay the cost of the access device, he explains. Pandey also notes that Neotel plans to offer prepaid services in future.

Pandey says Neotel's consumer offering will change the local telecoms market. The NeoConnect service has been custom-designed for Neotel to address consumers' latent and expressed needs, he says.

Regular testing and focus group discussions have allowed Neotel to continuously refine the service to what it is today, he adds.

The second national operator also plans to make it easier for customers to do business with it, by providing several avenues to request services or assistance.

Customers who want a service can contact a call centre, or the local post office, he says. Neotel will also do equipment home deliveries.

The company promises to be transparent in what it can deliver. This, it says, is demonstrated by its willingness to state clearly that it offers peak speed of 2.4Mbps, with average speeds ranging between 300 to 700Kbps.

"Currently, local operators are making promises that they can deliver broadband, when in reality, customers do not get those speeds," says Pandey.