Profitability via Productivity

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Best time to get some blogging done is either at airport lounges waiting for a flight, or on the flight itself. No phones, no disturbances, pure tranquillity except for the occasional snoring or kicks at my seat from passengers… Anyway, as I sat through the 15 minutes or so during take off, I looked back at how far we’ve come growing O-Tel from a small company with a big vision who had just received its licence, yet foggy road ahead, to a leading national 1st tier Digital Telephony company it is today. The hurdles we have jumped, the walls we faced, the unclear regulations from ICASA,...

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VoIP in KZN -2012

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Voip in KZN By Carel Boshoff -Vukatel KZN With the introduction of Voice Over Internet Protocol several years ago to consumers in Kwa Zulu/Natal it was clear that a lot had to be done to improve the service and to set higher standards for the industry to create platforms for communication via the internet. Along came O-Tel Telecoms, an international role player in the industry, and things started to change. Products was created and improved on to service the current markets, with the available infra structure for hosting internet based services in mind. Internet based services, with the focus...

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Opinion Piece: VoIP 2.0

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By Mitchell Barker www.whichvoip.co.za VoIP 2.0 – Part 1 VoIP is a commodity. Don’t believe me? I would be surprised to hear of a company who hasn’t been offered this technology in one form or another. I mean really, hard VoIP users topped the 100m mark based on Research conducted in UK and released in 2010. In South Africa, Bred pre 2005 -legalized then, 6 years on, and VoIP is more of a topical subject today than ever before. The only difference now is that VoIP has a new face. There used to be a clear distinction between VoIP, IP Telephony and Unified Communications. Going forward,...

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VoIP is NOT LCR

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The telecoms industry is arguably driven by consumer demand. In South Africa particularly, there has been much pressure from the public for lower costs in communications. This constant pressure has definitely had a positive effect. Inter-connect rates are dropping, broadband costs are lower, bandwidth packages are larger in size at lower prices, and call rates are much more attractive. Prices are expected to drop further. The rhetorical question is whether the above has prompted users to call more? Are they browsing more? The latter yes, studies show that internet access for high...

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Calls for Video Calling

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Just a few days ago a colleague mentioned to me he’s noticed an increase of newer model IP Phones being connected to the O-Tel Network. When I queried the relevance, he pointed out that these phones are geared up for Video Calling. I sighed and increased the priority level of ‘Video Calling Project’ on my Diary’s Task List. In this industry, we need not have a large in-house research department. We have hundreds of clients who regularly send us suggestions and custom requirements which turns to commercial deployments. It seems Google works overtime in VoIP related searches.So when we...

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Economically handling customer complaints

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——————– “Even though the percentage of complainants who behave unreasonably is relatively small (generally between 2-6%) they still use up a disproportionate amount of resources, time and energy from a company resulting in high stress to staff members.” ~Australian Parliamentary Ombudsman  (2009) ——————– Bad Service is always a key topic. Although my opinion is that service from South African private enterprises has improved considerably over the years, it can still do better. The fact is that although...

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