Telkom vs Neotel

Introduction

Neotel are doing a great job for telecommunications in South Africa, absolutely no question about it. Let us compare the cost of an ADSL line from Telkom - include the ISP (whether it be Telkom or another) to offerings available from Neotel.

If you have an ISP like most, the 1Gb would cost you around R69 per Gb, and therefore add R40 to your cost above.

So with Neotel you get an extra 1Gb bandwidth and probably a faster internet connection. But the real good and strange thing, is that the calls on your telephone charges are less, even if you call a Telkom number! And, Neotel charge you per second right from the start, no minimum charge like Telkom's per second billing.

Telkom to Telkom per minute is 43c per minute, where Neotel to Telkom is 34c. All of the call rates from Neotel, to any other number including cellular calls are cheaper than Telkom - the immediate per second billing makes a huge difference.

This offering from Neotel holds the "line", so that when you are on the internet, you cannot receive calls, and when on the phone, no internet. It acts like a "pause" button while you are busy on the other device.

You can connect one computer via USB to this device for internet access. So if you need the family to connect via the web on your wireless router, think again. So Neotel do have a solution, but for our scenario it is not viable.

The solution for multiple users on the internet and a phone that works while you are on the internet, you have to opt for the NeoFlex Data, and a basic NeoConnect Lite telephone.

So the 5Gb offering to replace our current 5Gb ADSL offering would cost [R598].

For the equivalent telephone, ADSL , rental and bandwidth (5Gb) from AfriHost it costs us [R474.99].

Don't forget your connection to the security company for your alarm to notify the control centre - these systems do not yet use the Neotel connection.

For a person who only needs one device, and one at a time – Neotel by far is the better solution. For the person with multiple users and needing the phone while on the internet – Telkom is the better option (if you have well priced ISP bandwidth). I'm sure Neotel will address the "concurrent" usage issue, and when they do, we'll be queuing up for the solution.

Still cannot get over that Telkom to Telkom is more expensive than Neotel to Telkom!! Eish!