SA's second national operator, Neotel, which celebrated its fourth birthday yesterday, is starting to expand its product range.
The company, the second fixed-line entrant into SA's telecoms environment, has laid 4 500km of fibre in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban, and has a 12 000km national network. It also has two data centres and an IP-based next-generation network.
Executive head of technology Angus Hay says Neotel is now gearing up to launch value-added products, such as outsourced call centre facilities at a per-seat price, tele-presence video conferencing, and a content delivery network to offer live video streaming.
Hay was addressing delegates at the Gartner 2010 Symposium, in Cape Town, this week. He said Neotel offers a converged service that bundles voice, data and networking through one IP-based communications network.
Neotel can also leverage parent company Tata Communications' vast global network, said Hay. He explained that Tata carries 15% of the world's Internet traffic, and is the largest carrier of wholesale voice minutes.
The operator also has access to several undersea cables, including SAFE, Seacom, SAT3 and Eassy, said Hay. He stated that Neotel is about 500m away from most enterprises in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, and can easily connect companies to the network.
In the pipeline
In addition, it is deploying a content delivery network that will be overlaid on its IP infrastructure. Hay said 10% of the information delivered over the Internet is content, such as video. The company's network will prioritise video and allow for real-time delivery.
Hay added that Neotel is also offering a hosted contact centre environment, which the company will sell anywhere in the world on a pay-per-seat basis.
Neotel's first tele-presence room has also gone live at its Midrand-based head office. Hay said companies can rent it per hour, or choose to have Neotel build their own private room.
* Nicola Mawson is being hosted courtesy of Gartner.
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