Contact Us Home>Broadband Internet>

Neotel lives the changing SA telecoms landscape

I reckon our much anticipated second network operator (Neotel) could probably have a bit of fun using the Frankenstein monster as part of their next marketing campaign. After all we have heard a lot about its impending arrival but never been quite su

Advertisement

I reckon our much anticipated second network operator (Neotel) could probably have a bit of fun using the Frankenstein monster as part of their next marketing campaign. After all we have heard a lot about its impending arrival but never been quite sure when it was going to happen.

It was actually quite exciting to see Neotel staff at work laying cables in Parktown and other places across the country. We have heard a lot of talk about the impact the SNO will have on telecommunications costs in SA and in my opinion - it cant come a minute too soon. Weve been hammered with heavy costs for many years and any competition will be vital. Affordable communication these days is a business tool not a luxury and we badly need this new investment in our telecoms sector infrastructure to try and bring us in line with the rest of the world.

We had an interesting discussion this week about the way Telkom has evolved as a service provider. A few years back, Telkom was perceived as a sprawling bureaucracy inefficient, impossible to deal with and possessing outdated technology. Since listing on the stock exchange, the organisation is a completely reshuffled service provider constantly looking to reinvest in its own infrastructure. In hindsight, there was a lot of talk about how much we needed an SNO to improve the performance from Telkom but Telkom surprised us. Instead of sitting back and waiting for the SNO to start investing in infrastructure, Telkom was proactive in restructuring themselves and this gave them a big head-start over the competition.

The Sentech disaster is an interesting case. Huge investments in infrastructure and yet we still dont have affordable broadband or wireless network solution. Perceptions are that money is being poured down the drain on a model that cant be efficiently monetized and the service is not available. Good concept poor execution. A number of people are calling for the project to be scrapped but I think scrapping the initial investment is not the ideal solution. Commercialise the operation, take it away from government and possibly tie its investment into Telkom activities or incentivise another corporate to get it up and running. Lets see what they can do with it and more importantly HOW FAST they can do it. A massive national broadband, satellite and radio network would be a huge boost for the local business environment.

The rapid growth in the local telecoms industry has led to a huge lack of capacity particularly on the Vodacom network. This has not been helped by the piggy-back nature of Cell-C and other service providers on the back of their infrastructure. While the idea of competition is good from a pricing perspective, it doesnt help the scenario when new entrants cannot afford to establish their own networks from which to operate.

Cellular, telecoms and IT companies are converging to bring a number of innovative solutions to the market. However large scale infrastructural investments need to be made to connect these solutions. The arrival of Neotel means increased investment in cables, towers and network backbone which will be instrumental in hustling in the next generation of communication solutions.

Article Directory : http://www.articlecube.com

Marc Ashton is the Managing Editor of ManufacturingHub.co.za (www.manufacturinghub.co.za) A South African industrial publication aimed at the Food, Pharmaceutical, Chemical and Cosmetic Manufacturing industries.

 

Post a Comment
 
Related Articles
Contact Us| Privacy Policy| About Us
©. 2009 kodyradio.com All Rights Reserved