A lot has been said and debated at different ICT industry forums about Neotel’s dream work and missions. But there has’nt been as yet more rigorous and easy to measure development, people begin to question the telecs ‘s ability to win over Telkom. On paper, Neotel (the word NEO in Pedi means to give (or gift)-can it then mean ‘to give telecommunications’- the question is at what cost and how much quality broadband can we expect? On cost, expect very ‘affordable’, and as for quality time will tell. The problem, it seems, lies on expertise to carry through the business plan! Neotel plans to introduce a variety of voice and data services (including high speed internet and broadband) for consumers in South Africa, with the first of these services targeted for availability in April 2007. However, consumers are already benefiting indirectly from the introduction of Neotel’s wholesale services through improved quality of international voice calls and more reliable internet bandwidth offered by Telecom provider.
At the MyADSL Broadband conference Angus Hay, the Executive Head of Strategy at Neotel continued to be diplomatic as did during the iWeek 2006 conference. An interesting thing is that by combining data, Voice and Internet Neotel is sure to transform the face of telecommunications in South Africa-giving rise to the phenomenon of convergence. This will also give Neotel to play a greater role on broadband connectivity. With its global reach (teleglobe), Neotel is likely to reach for the stars. However, to turn that good business plan into good business operations requires team work and contextualisation.
See South Africa ends phone monopoly (BBC news)