New SNO: Neotel delivers

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 4 September 2006

The new SNO also called SNO Telecom (for a short time) delivered its first official punch as Neotel with its launch in Midrand.

The 31^st of August 2006 will be remembered by ADSL business users in South Africa as the day the official campaign against Telkom finally started with the launch of Neotel’s business services. ALMOST a dozen companies switched to Neotel’s services on launch date. Telkom might call them the ‘dirty dozen’ with Cell C the proven leader. “Cell C was the first customer to place a call over the new network, said Neotel CEO Ajay Pandey” (BusinessDay, 4 September 2006). It seems that even Telkom is a customer taking into consideration occasional collaboration between the two rivals. We hope this will stay within legal limits though.

Pandey paraded the first customers (Telkom of course excluded) on the stage at Midrand making it clear that Neotel would be nothing without its clients. Neotel will definitely be able to deliver even bigger punches in the near future if they don’t forget this all-important fact. It is clear that Neotel still needs many more clients to recover its current and future investments. According to Pandey no profit will be seen for at least 3 to 4 years. This is true while Telkom will still rake in billions in the mean time building their Cash Empire while preparing for TOTAL WAR.

Neotel’s first aim is “to transmit international traffic for other telecommunications players that offer voice and data services to corporate SA” (BusinessDay, 4 September 2006). This will help to bring an end to Telkom’s domination and manipulation of this type of international bandwidth. Second in line will be large companies. International and national bandwidth will be offered directly to them by the end of the year.

Consumers will however have to wait a little bit longer. “The first few consumers in major urban areas should be reached by March next year, with a goal of eventually reaching 80% of the population” (BusinessDay, 4 September 2006).

ADSL South Africa encourages ADSL business users all over South Africa to switch to Neotel’s services whenever possible. It’s vital that we support this new player in order to ensure much-needed competition. It will take a lot to bring Telkom on its knees so don’t let that be your primary reason for not making the switch. On the contrary Neotel might bite the dust in an early stage if you don’t support them.

This is your chance to help make a difference to the lives of thousands and thousands of South Africans. Don’t let it slip through your fingers.