Cell C says it will start signing up customers on 17 November, well in time for the annual festive season boom in cellular subscribers.
A handful of franchises and retail partners, including Shoprite Checkers, Edgars, Sales House, Woolworths, and Foschini, will see around 2 500 retail outlets conducting sales.
The company is to announce its products and tariffs on 15 November. These are expected to include per-second billing on many packages, as well as a "homezone" product, which will see subscribers pay lower tariffs for calls made from a single base station in the area they identify as their home location.
It is believed that "Homezone" is aimed at encouraging subscribers to replace their landline phone with a cellular phone.
"We appreciate that consumers are anxious to know the details, but these can only be disclosed closer to our launch date," says Cell C service provider company MD Jos'e dos Santos.
The company says it will launch with both consumer and business contracts and "numerous new concepts that will change the shape of the cellphone business".
Both MTN and Vodacom recently introduced per-second billing, but said the timing of the introduction had nothing to do with Cell C`s launch.
"We welcome the incumbent`s belated introduction of per-second billing on some of their offerings, paving the way for our market entry," says Cell C chief advisor Paul Doany.
While the company promises greater value for money than the incumbents and says it intends to introduce innovative products, it has said there is no intention of waging a price war against MTN and Vodacom.
Cell C will initially rely heavily on the Vodacom network, on which its subscribers will roam in terms of a 15-year agreement between the companies. However, Cell C says it is on track to have 400 of its own base stations operational by year-end and that an aggressive roll-out will continue in 2002.
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