Neotel, previously SNO Telecommunications, is the second national operator (SNO) for fixed line telecommunication services in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. It was unveiled on 31 August 2006 in

Kyalami Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit (from ''Khaya lami'', ''My home'' in Zulu) is a motor racing circuit located in Midrand, Gauteng, South Africa, just north of Johannesburg. The circuit has been used for Grand Prix and Formula One races and has ho ...

in northern

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

. Neotel is South Africa's first direct telecommunications competitor to the current telecommunications

parastatal A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn profit for the governmen ...

, Telkom. The new company announced its business services on 15 November 2007 and its consumer services in May 2008. Its business services include local and international leased line services, as well as a suite of voice, data (VPN), and Internet offerings delivered over its converged, next-generation network. International Transit services for wholesale customers have been available since September 2006. They plan to use wireless broadband technologies, amongst others, which not only allows data transfers but also voice in the form of

VOIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...

. The arrival of a competitor is said to bring competitive pricing in terms of high speed internet (avg. 250 kbit/s to 750 kbit/s

CDMA2000 CDMA2000 (also known as C2K or IMT Multi‑Carrier (IMT‑MC)) is a family of 3G mobile technology standards for sending voice, data, and signaling data between mobile phones and cell sites. It is developed by 3GPP2 as a backwards-compatible ...

), broadband through

WiMax Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a family of wireless broadband communication standards based on the IEEE 802.16 set of standards, which provide physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) options. The WiMAX ...

, and later high speed broadband (

xDSL Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric di ...

and Fibre). For many years South Africa had only one telecommunications service, Telkom, which is partly government owned and partly private owned, but now for the first time people will have a choice of telecommunication services.

History

In 2001, an amendment to the Telecommunications Act was made that allowed for the creation of a competitor to South Africa's largest telecommunications operator, Telkom. The initial shareholders of the Second National Operator (SNO) were identified as

Eskom Eskom Hld SOC Ltd or Eskom is a South African electricity public utility. It was established in 1923 as the Electricity Supply Commission (ESCOM) and was also known by its Afrikaans name Elektrisiteitsvoorsieningskommissie (EVKOM). Eskom repre ...

and

Transnet Transnet SOC Ltd is a large South African rail, port and pipeline company, headquartered in the Carlton Centre in Johannesburg. It was formed as a limited company on 1 April 1990. A majority of the company's stock is owned by the Department ...

. In early 2002, bidding started for the remaining stakes in the SNO. The Shareholder's agreement was signed on 15 August 2005. Following the signing, the licence terms and conditions were finalized in March 2006, and the company officially launched in August 2006. In May 2014 a

buyout In finance, a buyout is an investment transaction by which the ownership equity of a company, or a majority share of the stock of the company is acquired. The acquiror thereby "buys out" the present equity holders of the target company. A buyout ...

offer of ZAR 7 Billion from cellular network

Vodacom Vodacom Group Limited is a South-Western African mobile communications company, providing voice, messaging, data and converged services to over 55 million customers. From its roots in South Africa, Vodacom has grown its operations to include n ...

was accepted by shareholders of both companies. Even though regulatory approval by the

Independent Communications Authority of South Africa The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) is an independent regulatory body of the South African government, established in 2000 by the ICASA Act to regulate both the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors in the publ ...

was obtained in 2015, the deal ultimately collapsed in March 2016 after competitors successfully challenged the transfer of Neotel's licenses and spectrum in court. In June 2016, Tata Communications announced that it had sold its stake in Neotel to

Liquid Telecom A liquid is a nearly incompressible fluid that conforms to the shape of its container but retains a (nearly) constant volume independent of pressure. As such, it is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, gas, a ...

, which is majority owned by Econet Wireless Global, for US$428 million.

Shareholding

Neotel currently consists of the following consortium: Initial holdings by

Holdings (15%), Transtel, a division of

(15%) and Two Consortium (12.5%) sold to

Tata Communications Tata Communications Limited (previously known as Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited) is an Indian telecommunications company. It was previously a government- owned-telecommunications service provider and under the ownership of Department of Telec ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

in 2009 and 2011, raising their stake from 26% to 68.5%, making them the majority shareholder within Neotel. In 2016, the company was acquired by Liquid Telecom. *Liquid Telecom (70%); * Royal Bafokeng Holdings ( BEE partner) (30%).

Products

Neotel launched their consumer products in 2008.

NeoConnect

NeoConnect is an

EV-DO Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO, EVDO, etc.) is a telecommunications standard for the wireless transmission of data through radio signals, typically for broadband Internet access. EV-DO is an evolution of the CDMA2000 (IS-2000) standard which su ...

based service and is available in two primary versions. All versions include a phone that includes support for

Short Message Service Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

(SMS) and voice calls. NeoConnect Lite is a low speed (up to 156

kbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...

) internet connectivity product. It has

data cap A data cap, often erroneously referred to as a bandwidth cap, is an artificial restriction imposed on the transfer of data over a network. In particular, it refers to policies imposed by an internet service provider in order to limit customers' u ...

options ranging between 2 GB and unlimited. NeoConnect Prime is a medium to high speed (up to 2.4

Mbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...

) product with data caps of between 2.5 GB and unlimited.

Limitations

* Neotel's products are currently only available in limited areas (Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Pretoria) * The phone only has a

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...

connection and does not provide a connection compatible with devices meant to connect to phone lines, such as fax machines. * Latency is variable, making the connection unsuitable for online gaming,

VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...

and other

jitter In electronics and telecommunications, jitter is the deviation from true periodicity of a presumably periodic signal, often in relation to a reference clock signal. In clock recovery applications it is called timing jitter. Jitter is a significa ...

sensitive applications.

International connectivity

As a wholesale telecommunications provider, and to support its own services, Neotel is involved in a number of

submarine communications cables A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the sea bed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. The first submarine communications cables laid beginning in the 1850s carried tel ...

that will increase South Africa's international connectivity between 2009 and 2011. Currently (prior to June 2009), Neotel offers international services that make use of SAT-3 and

SAFE A safe (also called a strongbox or coffer) is a secure lockable box used for securing valuable objects against theft or fire. A safe is usually a hollow cuboid or cylinder, with one face being removable or hinged to form a door. The body and ...

. It manages the landing station in South Africa for SEACOM, which was commissioned for operation on 23 July 2009, and is a participant in

EASSy The Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) is an undersea fibre optic cable system connecting countries in Eastern Africa to the rest of the world. EASSy runs from Mtunzini in South Africa to Port Sudan in Sudan, with landing points in ...

, and WACS.

References

External links

Official Website

Liquid Telecom

Econet Wireless

Neotel Forum

Neotel vs Telkom Call Charges
{{South African telecommunication companies Companies based in Johannesburg Telecommunications companies of South Africa Privately held companies of South Africa Telecommunications companies established in 2006 South African companies established in 2006 2016 mergers and acquisitions