Helping rural communities to communicate
Uplifting rural communities by providing people with reliable 24-hour telephone connection is the aim of the two-man operation BestPhone, a small company resident at The Innovation Hub's temporary premises in Pretoria. Franco Coetzee and Melt Morrison have been in the business of designing and developing the bureau telephone systems - total wireless phone shops with built-in remote SMS management - for 11 years. Their hard work was rewarded in November last year when they won an SABS design award for the prototype of the meter in their telephone system.
These communication systems, consisting of two telephone instruments and meters, were at first developed for Telkom land lines, but have lately been adapted for GSM (cellular) systems. The phone shops can operate on solar power due to their energy-efficient design.
How does it work?
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Franco Coetzee (left) and Melt Morrison
of BestPHone - their hard work was rewarded in November last year when they won a design award from the Design Institute of the South African Bureau of Standards for the prototype of the meter
in their telephone system.
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The owner of such a "phone shop" receives upfront pay- ment from a customer, opens a line for the customer to make calls, reads the meter, and pays out the change after the call has been completed. According to Coetzee: "The system is popular amongst local entre- preneurs and taxi owners. While a complete system costs in the order of R8 000, its profitability and good return on investment has been well proven."
BestPhone develops, manufactures and sells their product as a complete package to customers, including airtime. The company has contracted Electrosoft, one of start-up companies in the business incubator at The Innovation Hub, to develop the systems under leadership from Morrison, who obtained a Masters in micro-electronics from the University of Pretoria on this project and is currently busy with his doctoral studies, while Coetzee handles marketing and sales for the company.
"Most of our sales come via recommendations from satisfied customers," says Coetzee.
Contact
Franco Coetzee
Tel: [012] 349 0325
Cell: 082 601 1894
E-mail: bestphone@mweb.co.za
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