Easttel — wholesale voice and rural broadband carrier
Easttel is a wholesale telecoms carrier serving licensed operators, resellers and rural broadband networks. Trading as Amatole Telecommunications Services and licensed by ICASA since 2005, it holds a genuinely notable record: the first voice interconnect with Telkom outside the major mobile operators, and the first commercial WiMax network in the Southern Hemisphere. Its customers must themselves be licensed.
Key facts
| Who they are | Amatole Telecommunications Services (Pty) Ltd, trading as Easttel. Established 2004 and licensed by ICASA in 2005 as a USAL — an Under-Serviced Area Licensee for the Amatole District in the Eastern Cape. |
| Licensing | The original USAL licence was converted to a national IECS licence in 2009. Critically, Easttel states its clients are required to hold an ICASA individual, class or licence-exempt licence, and resellers must hold an ICASA licence-exempt letter — a regulatory gate that makes this unambiguously wholesale. |
| Firsts | The first voice interconnect with Telkom outside Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and Neotel, and the first commercial WiMax wireless network in the Southern Hemisphere. Its voice services were early South African VoIP, built on Vocaltec and Audiocodes media gateways. |
| Platform | A self-developed in-house platform with real-time CDR rating, billing, and fully autonomous reseller self-provisioning and management, supplied by sister company Xono Systems South Africa (Pty) Ltd. |
| Services | Voice, fibre, VSAT, rural broadband, consulting, and domain and hosting — all sold to licensed operators and resellers. |
| Rural commitment | Easttel supports the Zenzeleni Network in Mankosi and Zithulele, which it describes as the only commercially viable community-owned network in South Africa. The company argues the real barrier to bridging the digital divide is economic disparity rather than coverage. |
| Head office | The Pavilion, Dock Road, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town, 8001 |
| Listed In | VoIP Providers |
A licence requirement is the clearest wholesale signal there is
Most wholesale companies have to be identified by reading between the lines. Easttel removes the guesswork: it states that its clients must hold an ICASA licence, and that even its resellers need a licence-exempt letter. A business buying twenty extensions holds neither, so it simply cannot be a customer. What makes the listing worth reading anyway is the history — a USAL licensee for an under-serviced Eastern Cape district that built the first Telkom voice interconnect outside the big operators and the Southern Hemisphere’s first commercial WiMax network is a genuinely significant piece of South African telecoms. The Zenzeleni support and the stated view that the digital divide is an economic problem rather than a coverage one are unusually candid. For business services, compare the verified providers.
Who Easttel is a fit for
- ICASA-licensed operators and resellers needing wholesale voice or interconnect
- Rural broadband networks and community operators needing a licensed upstream carrier
- Resellers wanting a self-provisioning platform with real-time rating and billing
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Easttel sells wholesale to ICASA-licensed operators and resellers — its clients are required to hold a licence, so it cannot sell to an ordinary business and there is no quote to request here. Compare the South African providers WhichVoIP has verified.
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Compare VoIP providers →Commonly asked questions
Can my business buy from Easttel?
Almost certainly not. Easttel requires its clients to hold an ICASA individual, class or licence-exempt licence, and resellers to hold a licence-exempt letter.
When was Easttel established?
The company, Amatole Telecommunications Services, was established in 2004 and licensed by ICASA in 2005 as a USAL for the Amatole District in the Eastern Cape.
What is a USAL?
An Under-Serviced Area Licence — a licence class created to bring telecoms to underserved South African districts. Easttel’s was converted to a national IECS licence in 2009.
What is Easttel known for?
Being the first to establish a voice interconnect with Telkom outside Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and Neotel, and operating the first commercial WiMax wireless network in the Southern Hemisphere.
What is the Zenzeleni Network?
A community-owned network in the Mankosi and Zithulele villages that Easttel supports, and which it describes as the only commercially viable one of its kind in South Africa.
Who should a business buy from instead?
A licensed provider selling to end users. The WhichVoIP comparisons cover South African providers whose services we have verified.
This listing is maintained by WhichVoIP, an independent South African telecoms comparison service running since 2019. Details are verified against the provider’s public website and were last reviewed on 1 August 2026.