Cisco teams up with Neotel

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 26 February 2007

Cisco Systems, well-known worldwide network solutions provider, has teamed up with Neotel (SNO) through its partner Dimension Data Africa (Didata). This happened after vital components of Neotel’s infrastructure rollout were awarded to them.

Cisco and Didata ‘will provide the Metropolitan Ethernet network infrastructure and services portion of Neotel's Internet Protocol (IP) network, expected to be in operation by next month’ (Cisco, Didata team up with Neotel, Inet-Bridge, 19 February 2007). This is according to a Cisco spokesperson in a statement last week.

What does this mean for Neotel and the average South African?

Firstly, it means that the rollout of Neotel’s critical systems will be left in capable hands, and secondly, it will help to ‘break Telkom’s monopolistic stronghold in the fixed line telephone market’ (Cisco, Didata team up with Neotel, Inet-Bridge, 19 February 2007).

Capable hands because Cisco and Didata are both respectable companies backed-up by solid credentials. In other words, we can expect to see a smooth rollout of Neotel’s infrastructure. This will clearly benefit ADSL and other telecoms users in South Africa since it should give us a real alternative to Telkom’s services sooner rather than later.

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa) welcomes Neotel’s efforts to get only the best of players on its team.