It's crazy how far behind we are. I just came back from Poland where I signed up to Orange Unlimited. ~R340pm (no contract, just month-to-month), uncapped, unshaped, and unthrottled 5G (with fallback onto 4G/3G) to use in your phone or modem and can be shared with 3 sim cards/esims. I was mostly getting ~700mb/s - 1.3 Gb/s wherever I went.
Meanwhile, I've had an open case with ICASA for years where I live in the Kalahari. The entire region is marked as 4G/LTE enabled on the coverage maps, yet there is almost nothing available. You need a signal booster with a yagi 6m+ above ground to hold a slow 3G connection, which comes and goes with the wind (or as they steal batteries). We go days with more time disconnected than connected. The thing is, South Africa Government Gazette Vol. 693. No. 48318 defines minimum speeds, uptime, etc. for broadband connectivity. Do they meet any of these requirements? No. Do ICASA care to enforce the law? No. Do they respond to follow-ups on the case? No. Has anyone from Vodacom, MTN or ICASA bothered to come out and investigate? No. Do Vodacom and MTN continue to claim LTE coverage in the region. Absolutely.
Much like everything else in this place, what a joke.
