Neotel, the country’s second telecoms provider and rival to Telkom, is to launch its first consumer offering in Cape Town later this month, following its initial launch in Johannesburg in May.

The group is launching an all-in-one handset – called NeoConnect Prime – which is being branded as a fixed-mobile product and provides internet, voice calls and SMS services.

The internet service currently has a peak speed of 2.4 Mbps, although this is to be upgraded to 3.1 Mbps later in the year, and offers capped packages of between 2.5GB to 15GB, as well as an uncapped package.

Neotel says the higher capped packages are in response to its customer research, which has found that people are frustrated with the low data-capped packages currently on offer from most internet suppliers.

Thomas Van der Linde, head of Consumer Marketing at Neotel, says the company’s biggest weakness at the moment is “coverage," but adds that this "will be improved over time, as we secure sites." Durban is also expected be covered over the next few months.