Neotel soft launches consumer services

South Africa’s second national operator (SNO), Neotel, has launched its first voice and internet services for residential users. The SNO is offering a CDMA-based fixed wireless service called NeoConnect to users in parts of Johannesburg and Pretoria. The initial launch is for users who have already registered an interest with Neotel; a full commercial launch is scheduled for next month. The NeoConnect Prime tariff offers 1,000 minutes to Neotel numbers, 50 SMS to Neotel numbers, an e-mail account and up to 10GB of internet access a month for ZAR599 (USD78). Internet download speeds will average between 300kbps and 700kbps on the CDMA2000 1x EV-DO network.