An obsession with satisfying the customers’ needs sits at the heart of Neotel’s success, and remains the driving principle for a future in which the power of the customer is growing ever stronger.

This is according to Kennedy Memani, Director in Charge of Neotel, and a founding shareholder of the business, as the company celebrates ten years in operation.

“Technology analysts like Forrester say we are living in the ‘Age of The Customer’, and that customer-obsessed strategies provide a shared agenda for business and technology leaders such as Neotel,” says Memani.

“We knew this instinctively when we launched Neotel in 2006, and this approach has underpinned the innovative ICT solutions we have developed to serve the considerable ambitions of our large and small business, government and wholesale customers.”

For ten years, satisfying customers’ ongoing quest to leverage next generation technology for competitive advantage has become Neotel’s mission.

Neotel’s next generation network coverage is a crucial differentiator for customers who are keen to benefit from the advantages that only super-resilient, truly converged solutions can bring.

The company has invested over R7 billion in infrastructure, with 30,000 kilometres of national backbone fibre network now connecting the top 40 cities and towns in South Africa.

With over 10,000 kilometres of fibre in South Africa’s metros to reach customers, Neotel’s network in the country’s major cities directly connects over 5,000 businesses and passes close to another 100,000 addresses.

Neotel’s network is one of the largest Ethernet networks in Africa and the first to be certified as fully MEF compliant.

“Our high-performance core fibre network is highly resilient with multi-path local and international redundancy, resulting in 99.999% availability,” says Memani.

“From a customer’s point of view that means less than 4 minutes core network downtime per year.”

Memani adds that Neotel is also especially proud of its international connectivity, leveraging more than 350 000 kilometres of international fibre and a global Tier 1 ISP network to serve customers in 200 countries and 300 cities worldwide from South Africa.

Neotel has fully redundant backhaul fibre to the landing stations of all 5 international submarine cables serving South Africa, and is a participant in all of these cable systems as an owner or landing partner.

“Our Data Centres are enterprise grade with full carrier diversity and access to the best network connectivity in the country,” he says.

Anchor tenants include major carriers, ISPs, enterprises and international service providers.

Neotel’s Data Centres are the highest power density facilities in SA, offering physical hosting, virtual hosting and cloud services with comprehensive security features.

“The quality and extent of Neotel’s next-generation infrastructure has enabled us to become a leader in innovative and cost effective ICT services and solutions.

“Most notably we were the first in South Africa to introduce fibre broadband and we continue to regularly win awards for the best broadband services in South Africa.”

Neotel was also first to market with Tier 1 IP transit, SIP based Voice Services, Metro Ethernet services and open access cable systems. Neotel has also led with a range of innovative on-demand network services and usage based pricing models that are becoming more and more crucial to companies migrating to the cloud.

These include Neotel’s Broadband-on-demand and Consumption-based WAN services.

Neotel strives to keep offering customers the kind of innovative, great-value ICT services and solutions that really matter to them.

“We believe by continuing with this approach we will make our customers and ourselves successful, and help to grow the ICT industry in South Africa,” adds Memani.

The direction Neotel has taken over the past ten years has been in direct response to the demands of customers across multiple business and government sectors.

Their needs have included all the major aspects of ICT delivery, but their number one priority has been to work with a substantial, credible partner in a relationship based upon trust.

“Neotel’s credentials in this regard are supported not only by our national network footprint and comprehensive solution set, but by the breadth and depth of our customer profile

“This spans multiple verticals, including many major players in the banking/finance, health, retail, mining, industrial, manufacturing, agricultural and telecommunications sectors as well as major State-owned Enterprises and Government departments.”

For more information, visit the Neotel website.