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customer response times. The company promises
a sign-up window of a day rather than weeks. Its
major hindrance is obtaining permission to erect
new transmission towers. These base stations
are often delayed due to onerous requirements
such as protracted Environmental Impact Assess-
ments, objections from residents concerned about
radiation leaking from transmission towers, and
aggressive bargaining on the part of property own-
ers where transmission equipment is installed. In
2008, iBurst partnered with Vodacom to roll out
a WiMax nework, targeting high end residential
and business customers. This technology allowed
for more robust, higher capacity connection to the
Internet, as demanded by this market segment.
The most recent entrant into the broadband
space is Neotel, touted as the country's second
network operator, the official competition to Tel-
kom. Neotel was founded in 2006 and shortly after
being awarded its licence, set about to establish
a nationwide network. The principle of conver-
gence shaped the formation of its infrastructure,
in that all telecommunications services were
designed to run over a single IP-based network.
This meant that all data-driven services could be
integrated simultaneously on its network. In 2007,
it launched its portfolio of corporate services and,
a year later, its consumer offering. The company
uses CDMA2000 for its access network, connect-
ing consumers. The average customer therefore
experiences a throughput in the range of 250kbps
to 750 kbps. Whilst this is not the fastest con-
nection on the market, the company reckons it is
adequate for most users. It has recently launched
a suite of new products, including a multi-user
platform (NeoFlex) which is able to reach peak
speeds in the region of 3Mbps. Neotel has been
ambitious in terms of its pricing and offers a rate
of R 0.08 (one US cent) per megabyte of data
transferred. This is considerably lower than any
other wireless operator and is within the realm of
fixed-line broadband. The major stumbling block
has been coverage. Whilst the company boasts
a metropolitan and national network of colossal
proportions, extending the reach to end users is
stifled by a limited number of transmission towers.
Neotel has suffered many of the same problems
as iBurst in this respect, particularly in the Cape
Town region where local authorities apply a strict
stance on base station erection.
The above broadband services require users
to remain in a fixed location whilst using the In-
ternet. However, the cellular networks' offerings
(i.e. those of MTN and Vodacom) were designed
to be more flexible. This allows a user to be in
motion, for example travelling on a train or bus,
whilst keeping the connection active.
Prior to Christmas in 2004, Vodacom fulfilled
their promise of launching 3G services (operating
at a speed of 384 kilobits per second) in the local
market. MTN followed suit in mid 2005. Due to the
cellular networks' extensive coverage throughout
the country, the area in which wireless broadband
could be obtained was significantly expanded.
However, the high speed service was initially
launched on a limited scale - within metropolitan
areas - and is still constrained to urban and CBD
areas where Internet usage is rife. Furthermore,
data charges (i.e. cost per megabyte transferred)
were originally considerably higher than those
offered by fixed-location broadband providers.
This resulted in potential 3G users being offered
a one gigabyte package for a similar price to that
being charged for a three gigabyte (or larger) ac-
count on the other networks. This immediately
signalled that users would be made to pay for true
mobility and extended network coverage. In 2006,
MTN and Vodacom optimised their 3G service
with the introduction of High Speed Downlink
Packet Access (HSDPA). This increased down-
load speeds to a maximum theoretical limit of
1.8 Mbps, providing the fastest wireless form of
broadband. This has subsequently been ramped up
to 3.6Mbps and even 7.2Mbps in selected coverage
areas. This development was seen as a major step
forward for customers who required multimedia
services (particularly Web 2.0 applications such
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