Neotel will bid for spectrum

Spectrum is the scarce resource required for operators to roll out wireless networks.

Although Neotel already has a significant amount of spectrum allocated to it - 56MHz - it was currently operating WiMax using the 802.16d standard (without mobility), according to executive head for enterprise sales Stefano Mattiello.

Mattiello said if it wanted to add mobility (the 802.16e standard), which was far better suited to the consumer market; it would have to apply for spectrum in the 2.5 to 2.6MHz band.

"Yes, we have an interest in it," he said, when asked if Neotel would take part in the auction. "We don't know if we'll get it, but we will participate."

The operator's comments came as part of a question and answer session off the back of a visit of journalists to its National Operations Centre (NOC) in Woodmead on Tuesday morning.

The focus of the briefing was on the enterprise portion of the business (not the consumer offering, which was launched recently).

Mattiello said the physical environment of the NOC was not that large - with 35 seats - it was more of a virtual environment because the network is IP-based (internet protocol).

Every engineer that it has on the road and connected via his or her laptop also forms a part of this: "Our NOC is as big as the team of engineers we have out there."

The 35 seats include those taken by on-site vendors as well as other managed service providers, like Nokia Siemens Networks, which manages the long-distance part of the network. The latter part of the network belongs to Infraco, but Neotel uses and manages this on its behalf.

Neotel's head of network operations Charles Webster said the NOC aimed to proactively identify any problems on the network even before the client picked these up. However, if a fault was reported, the team had 15 minutes in which to rectify this, before the problem had to be escalated in terms of the strict service level agreements that it has in place with customers.

At the rate the network was growing, the NOC would probably need to move to bigger premises soon, Webster said.

It is also in the process of integrating its NOC with that of Transtel, which Neotel recently bought. This would give it two centres, which it would most likely split in terms of technology, but would also serve it well for redundancy purposes.

Mattiello said Neotel was serving roughly 150 corporate clients. This is up from the 130-odd that it had when it announced its results for the year to March earlier this year.

It will also introduce new products to them along the way.

Rajeev Sinha, the senior manager for products and solutions, said Neotel would launch at least three or four managed services products this fiscal year, on top of the local and international IP solutions its was already offering its enterprise customers.

- Fin24.com