6 April 2008
South African second landline operator Neotel has introduced its first set of products and services for individuals, with the company’s NeoConnect Prime bundle being introduced to its employees residing in parts of Johannesburg and Pretoria following a successful pilot phase.
The company initially intends to address those consumers who had already approached Neotel and had registered for services during the pilot phase, though a formal announcement, with a wider range of bundle options, will be made during the course of this month.
In a statement released last week, Neotel said that the bundle, which had undergone commercial testing since March, was designed after conducting in-depth consumer research.
“We picked up a number of pain points for consumers during this research process, including the issues relating to the perceived speed and capacities for internet access, lack of voice quality and reliability, the complexity associated with obtaining and setting-up services and a lack of true value for the customer,” said Neotel MD Ajay Pandey.
“We believe that we have addressed these points in the design of our offering to consumers.”
The NeoConnect bundle uses a CDMA2000 EVDO network to handle a number of different tasks such as internet access, voice and SMS over a single connection and service, providing customers with high-speed internet access and combining the best of fixed-line and mobile technologies.
The current peak speed offered is 2.4 megabits per second and Neotel expects an average user experience ranging between 300 to 700 kilobits per second, with future upgrades ensuring even faster speeds brought to the market.
“A key differentiator in our product is its ease of use – it will take you next to no time to install and start using the service”, said Pandey.
This first bundle introduced by Neotel includes 1 000 Neotel to Neotel voice minutes, 50 Neotel to Neotel SMS’s, an email account and free internet access up to 10 gigabytes of data for a monthly charge of R599, inclusive of all monthly fees such as device charges and service rentals, as well as VAT.
The only charges that consumers will have to pay in addition to the monthly fee will be the out of bundle usage charges which are summarised in the table below.
“This is just the first of a number of packages we will bring to the market and we believe that customers will not only find value in what we offer, but will be able to choose a package that best meets their needs,” said Pandey. “There will be packages that address lower usage and are therefore lower in price, and then of course there will be those packages that directly speak to high-end consumers.”
SAinfo reporter
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