Local VOIP provider Switch Telecom has invested in additional capacity that will allow its network to handle five times the customers it has now.
MD Gregory Massel says the investment in the additional capacity will only get the company through the next six months to a year, before additional capacity will be required to handle the expected boom.
Massel says that, with geographic number portability (GNP) expected to be rolled out over the next few months, he has to plan for a boom in his business. “Companies were not happy about losing their Telkom numbers before, but GNP will give them new choices in the market.”
According to Massel, the company is confident of an increase in its customer base when GNP kicks off, even considering the mass of competition it faces, including larger companies like Neotel.
He says GNP is only one aspect of growing that customer base. “All operators will now have access to customers that really only belonged to Telkom before. Whoever takes advantage of it now, will win in the end. Operators now have to come up with innovative products.”
Switch is one of the few VOIP providers that have applied for, and been awarded, geographic numbers. 011 for Johannesburg, 021 for Cape Town, Pretoria and Durban are also among the numbers it has been awarded.
The company recently applied for several new numbers, in reaction to its new customer base. It has just secured geographic for Nelspruit and Witbank (013), Three Rivers and Vereeniging (016), Port Elizabeth (041), George (044) and Bloemfontein (051).
“These areas will be live within the next two to three weeks. These numbers were reactive; we were responding to our customer demand base, and applied for these numbers,” explains Massel.
Other VOIP providers will need to start planning for GNP, if they hope to compete with the likes of Neotel in what promises to be a clamour for Telkom's drop-offs. Switch has been working towards the process since the beginning of last year, when it first announced it had applied for the number range.
The company says it saw the number of lines it supports, as well as call volumes, more than quadruple during 2009, and has added switching capacity to its hosted centre in Rosebank. It is also moving to a larger head office in Woodmead to accommodate its growing number of employees.
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