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Altech Autopage Cellular FOCUS TECHNOLOGY

As JSE-listed Altech subsidiary Altech Autopage Cellular integrates with sister company Altech Technology Concepts, forming a dynamic new service provider in the Telecommunications & ICT sector, South Africa Magazine talks to Altech Autopage Cellular’s Boyd Chislett. By Ian Armitage

oyd Chislett is the Chief Executive Officer at Altech Autopage Cellular, the largest independent cellular service provider in South Africa. He is excited, like all within the company and many outside of it, about one thing – its merger with sister company Altech Technology Concepts. “It’s very, very exciting. Leveraging on each other’s infrastructure, new ground will be covered,” Mr Chislett says. Altech Technology Concepts is a dominant player in the provision of physical network links, Internet access, managed services and cloudbased services to the business and consumer markets. Both firms are part of JSE-listed Allied Technologies Limited (Altech), a leading South African multi-billion rand high-technology group. It is a “marriage made in heaven” and is part of Altech’s push for “converged offerings”. “It is a positive move,” Chislett says. “It means both Altech Autopage Cellular and Altech Technology Concepts will be able to leverage off each other and offer customers a single point of contact, a one-stop shop, for a variety of world-class services ranging from voice, to data, to hosting, to storage solutions. “The new company will be a single point of contact for all those services.

It means both Altech Autopage Cellular and Altech Technology Concepts will be able to leverage off each other and offer customers a single point of contact

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Altech Autopage Cellular FOCUS TECHNOLOGY

BlackBerry and Altech Autopage form a winning team Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of BlackBerry® smartphones and tablets, believes in close partnership with service providers and network operators as it strives to bring accessible and affordable handsets and data services to market. In fact, RIM has relationships with over 650 carriers and distribution partners in 175 countries around the world. Alexandra Zagury, Managing Director for South & Southern Africa at RIM, says that this approach has been instrumental to RIM’s success globally and in South Africa over the years.

“And a successful integration will allow for further convergence in the future.” Chislett says the “convergence” is a rare occurrence amongst South African ICT companies that will result in a more “diversified portfolio, a stronger commercial platform”. “It also enables us to leverage off retail business and partner distribution channels,” he says. All employees are being integrated into the new group, with no job losses – and a new leader in the rapidly growing telecoms and IT industry will be born. Chislett added, “No longer will customers have to go to different service providers when they require voice, Internet and data solutions. And when something goes wrong, they wont be pushed from pillar to post as one service provider blames the other for a lack of services. “The reality is that if you look at the industry and where it is going, converged services are where the industry is, and where growth will come from. It made sense for us to broaden our horizons”. 4

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Altech Autopage Cellular is one of these partners and has played a significant role in providing cellular users with affordable smartphone packages that enhance their lives at home and work. “Affordable and transparent, alwayson data packages has completely changed the local market by making smartphones more accessible to many more people and has played a major role in growing BlackBerry into South Africa’s leading smartphone,” says Zagury. According to independent research from GfK Retail and Technology BlackBerry has been the leading smartphone vendor in South Africa for over 23 months in August.

The BlackBerry and RIM families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Research In Motion Limited. All other brands, product names, company names, trademarks and service marks are the properties of their respective owners. RIM assumes no obligations or liability and makes no representation, warranty, endorsement or guarantee in relation to any aspect of any third party products or services.

Altech Autopage Cellular FOCUS TECHNOLOGY

Altech Autopage Cellular traditionally focussed on providing only GSM / mobile connectivity solutions. Now with the merger, it also offers fixed line solutions so this means that they’re able to offer a much wider range of product solutions for many services such as VoIP, hosting, video conferencing, server virtualisation, channel bonding, back-ups and archiving and digital marketing so it positions them in a much stronger place in the market. It is also able to offer clients a full range of product solutions and they only have to deal with one service provider as opposed to having to deal with a different one for mobile, fixed line, and other internet based services. “The merger commenced in March and one of our key millstones in the integration process was the combination of our customer contact centres. This unified entity now addresses all customer interactions and has ensured consistent and in some areas improved service to our customer base. We’re finally operating as one team, however our next challenge is the integration of our billing systems, as with mergers of this kind systems integration is more technical and takes more time. Soon we’ll be able to send customers that onebill to simplify their lives,” Chislett says. “We’re working on constructing a new brand identity, what this will look like is still being defined. We’re currently gathering input from all our stakeholders and customers to ensure that we remain relevant and that we don’t lose the equity we have built as the two separate entities over the past years. This is an exciting step for us and getting it right is our main priority, confirming exactly when this will be completed is still to be determined.” END To learn more visit www.autopage.co.za. 6

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