Mobile broadband: Who dishes up the best deal?

Rudolph Muller

Rudolph Muller is the editor at MyBroadband and covers telecoms and broadband news. Rudolph comes from an academic background, but left the University of...

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Over the last few months there have been significant ADSL bandwidth price cuts, overshadowing some of the price adjustments made by Vodacom and MTN in the mobile broadband market.

MTN slashed the out-of-bundle (OOB) pricing of its data packages while Vodacom added more data to some bundles and reduced the price of its broadband advanced offerings.

Vodacom and MTN are also giving their subscribers theoretical access speeds of up to 21 Mbps, well above the speeds offered by their competitors.

Telkom and Cell C

It is however not MTN or Vodacom which currently provides the best value proposition in the mobile broadband market, but rather Telkom Mobile. 

To date Telkom has flown below the radar with its HSDPA offerings, but thousands of subscribers are already enjoying great speeds at prices well below other offerings in the market.

Telkom’s HSDPA coverage is currently patchy, but the company recently announced that it has signed a roaming agreement with MTN which means that it may soon become a more prominent player in the South African mobile market.

Cell C has been the black sheep of the mobile broadband market since 3G services were launched by MTN and Vodacom in 2004/2005, but the company has started rolling out an HSPA+ network and is expected to compete more effectively in this arena once it can offer 21.1 Mbps services.

Pricing comparison

The following table provides an overview of the mobile broadband pricing from the four main players in the market.

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