By offering voice, data and internet services over a single connection, Neotel has established itself as South Africa’s first converged telecommunications network operator. Founded in 2006 and backed up by the financial and technical clout of global communications company Tata Communications, Neotel has since become a major force within the country’s telecommunications sector.
During its first four years in business, Neotel laid the foundations for its future success by investing some R4.5 billion in infrastructure alone, rolling out a new fibre optic communications backbone nationwide. This included higher density installation in the metropolitan areas amounting to some 5,000 kilometres of cable, and delivering fibre communication to the kerbside for large corporate customers. Much of the Neotel service is internet based, and not only includes ISP services and managed global and local VPN services for corporate customers, but the company also introduced the first Metro Ethernet in South Africa.
Today the company covers all major metropolitan areas of South Africa, in which it caters for wholesale, business and home customer needs, delivering services that reduce the cost of doing business through the optimising of advanced technologies. Neotel provides a range of value-added voice, data and internet services in order to support its diverse clientèle , be it home customers using telephone handsets to the major data centres that have become epicentres for local and international business.
As well as offering effective solutions that are suited to large, medium and small businesses in order to handle individual telecommunications needs, Neotel is also dedicated to providing cost-effective telephone and voice solutions. The company’s reliable data solutions are designed to provide businesses a competitive advantage thanks to a combination of high-speed performance, flexibility and cost efficiency, while its secure and competitive hosting provides customers with the most cost-effective solution to their IT infrastructure investment.
Neotel is also the only Tier 1 operator in South Africa with a global reach. Through its major shareholder, Tata Communications, it has managed to bring faster, more reliable internet to numerous areas of the country. As the leading converged South African fixed line telecoms operator, Neotel’s Carrier Services offers connectivity to the global internet backbone through its world class fibre optic network and expertise. With a network spanning 200 countries on six continents, its Carrier Services solutions combine next generation SDH, IP and ethernet capability, global reach with active local presence and support, ideally suited to mobile service providers, fixed line operators and internet service providers.
Additional services offered by the company include Virtual Private Networks, hosting and satellite services, while its various telecommunications licences, electronic communication network service licence and electronic communication network licence, allow it to provide a complete range of telecommunications services.
Arguably, Neotel’s greatest strength is reflected in its shareholding, which embodies vast global as well as local telecoms experience, giving the company greater impetus to achieve its objectives. The company’s strategic equity partner, the Tata Group of India (through VSNL and Tata Africa Holdings Pty), brings immense expertise derived from its worldwide telecommunications operations. This partnership gives Neotel access to international best practice and the latest technical innovations.
Furthermore, Nexus Connexion, its Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) equity partner, has a broad based constituency which includes women and youth groups, while developmental NGOs, labour unions and businesses are represented by individuals and corporates. One private consortium in particular, Communitel, brings additional international and African experience through their various shareholders, including TelecomNamibia.
Today the company is involved in a number of improvement projects designed to increase its cyber, wireless and IP capacity. This work includes the ongoing construction of three massive data centres and the installation of more than 5,000 kilometres of cables.
Connected to the South Africa Far East (SAFE) cable, Neotel also boasts a landing station on the SEACOM cable system project. The company is also a member of the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) consortium and has invested some R80 million into the project to date, which is expected to go live in August 2014. The addition of EASSy will significantly boost international bandwidth capacity and redundancy, and increase Internet connectivity competition in South Africa.
In the last several months Neotel has successfully expanded its retail footprint by opening its second store at the N1 City Mall in Cape Town. It represents just the latest development for company that is pushing hard to reach R3 billion in revenue this year alone as more companies secure confidence in Neotel’s industry leading services.
Written by Will Daynes, research by David Brogan and Robert Hodgson
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