Converged communications network operator Neotel on Wednesday said it had finalised the backhaul agreement with Seacom, allowing for capacity to terminate in Johannesburg rather than Mtunzini.

Seacom, a 1.28 terabits per second, 17 000km submarine fibre optic cable system will link south and east Africa to global networks via India and Europe.

Neotel said the agreement would have a tremendous impact on the costs of capacity.

"Currently the cost of taking capacity from Cape Town to Johannesburg is the same as taking capacity from Cape Town to London," said Stefano Mattiello, chief sales and customer service officer at Neotel.

"With this new agreement in place, the capacity will terminate in the Neotel Data Centre in Midrand, which means Neotel can make the capacity more readily available to its customers," he said.

Other service providers will be able to either meet Neotel in its data centre in Midrand to purchase capacity, or Neotel can forward it on to them.

Neotel said that its strategy for consumer customer acquisition remained that of a growth in numbers, but also to introduce new products and services.

"We will continue to work tirelessly over the next year to significantly increase the coverage for consumer users," Mattiello said.

The group said that over the past year, the growth in Neotel Business, previously known as its Enterprise Business Unit, had far exceeded these market growth figures.

"Neotel Business grew its revenue by 600 percent during Neotel's past financial year and literally tripled its customer base," continued Mattiello.

This has resulted in a broader go-to-market strategy. "While the team continues to focus on the top tier of the market, it has now also started making inroads into the next tier of clientele," he concluded.

I-Net Bridge

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