This is expected to enable the two companies to jointly develop converged electronic communications services and products leveraging off their complementary areas of expertise and core services.

Commenting on the alliance partnership, arivia.kom CEO, Zeth Malele, says: The alliance is an extension of our existing portfolio of products and services, and does not in any way constitute a major shift in our communications strategy focus.

arivia.kom has historically been a significant user of bandwidth provided by Eskom telecommunications and Transtel. The entire arivia.kom network operates over this bandwidth, and, as a natural progression, with both entities being shareholders of Neotel, arivia.kom can expand commercial services over the core network that Neotel will own and manage.

arivia.kom will sign an open-ended alliance partnership agreement with Neotel, which will lay the foundation for the provision of services to the public in general in the quickest and most effective delivery framework. The alliance agreement is based on specific opportunities identified in the ICT sector rather than a long-term services agreement.

This fits comfortably into the vision of our organisations. We believe that Neotel is highly professional, and the value of VSNL behind its drive into the SA market cannot be underestimated, Malele added.

As with the open source software phenomenon, large local communications users may take a while to adapt to the fact that an alternative communications network exists in the country.

Neotel says that it can offer the country an effective alternative network to significant users - such as banks and various other organisations that need communications up-time exceeding 97% - by merely switching traffic between the Neotel and Telkom carrier networks.