Neotel: Enough already!

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 27 February 2011

It is no secret that Neotel is failing big time in the South African telecoms market, especially considering their continuous and substantial financial losses. Neotel’s response from the consumer’s point of view to what can be deemed as a crisis, given the real threat to Neotel’s chances of continuing as a going concern, has so far been lacking and plain stupid to say the least. In fact, one cannot help to think “enough already” as they are trying to save face by coming up with the most deplorable of excuses imaginable, shifting the blame for their failures to us Average Joes.

The latest publicity stunt…

In the latest publicity stunt, if one can call it that, the Chief Technology Officer (OTC) of Neotel, Angus Hay, has for one made it clear that unrealistic expectations on the part of us Average Joes (consumers) are largely to be blamed for the ‘misconception’ that Neotel has failed in the South African telecoms market.

Hay base his notion of unrealistic expectations as mentioned above on the fact that many of us Average Joes have according to him in error referred to Neotel as the SNO (Second National Operator) or an entity that would tackle Telkom in the fixed-line telecoms sector, while Neotel has made it clear from the beginning that they’re South Africa’s first “converged telecoms company.” He has also mentioned Neotel’s successes in the South African telecoms market such as their involvement with the successful launch of more than one undersea cable system (SEACOM, EASSy and WACS), their facilitating of 60% to 70% price drops in national long distance backhaul prices, etc. Yes, Neotel had some successes in the South African telecoms market, but for them to now come out and say that they had not been tasked to tackle Telkom in the fixed-line telecoms market is ludicrous to say the least, especially considering that it was common knowledge since 2006 that the SNO (Second National Operator), in reference to Neotel, was conceived to bring an end to Telkom’s monopoly in the fixed-line telecoms market in South Africa. In all honesty, one can understand that tackling Telkom head-on would be tough if not impossible for Neotel (or any other telecoms operator for that matter), but as far as we know they’ve enjoyed massive consumer support at that stage and had the mandate to tackle Telkom in the fixed-line arena, in some form or another. This got to count towards something despite what in retrospect have turned out to be unrealistic expectations to a fairly large extent, especially considering expectations in regards to Neotel’s ability to break down Telkom’s monopoly overnight. If it was not Neotel’s mandate to break Telkom’s hold on the fixed-line telecoms market, why was such a fuss being made about Neotel in the first place and why didn’t they set the record straight at the time beside referring to themselves as South Africa’s first “converged telecoms company”?

In other words, despite Neotel’s not so obvious successes in the SA telecoms market, it is wrong of them to now point the finger at us Average Joes and not to acknowledge that they’ve largely failed in the SA telecoms market.

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