Bad news for people who pay for Internet in South Africa

[Newsfeed]

Bad news for people who pay for Internet in South Africa

The Competition Commission's latest Cost of Living report found that wired and wireless broadband price increases in South Africa exceeded headline inflation in 2026.

 

[StefanB7]

The Competition Commission is very concerned that internet prices rose 0.3% above inflation, while Eskom casually slaps on another 8.83% hike and calls it Tuesday.

 

[Justanotherguybythesea]

Because Internet is not another state controlled monopoly, they want the good old days where Telkom told you 384kb/s was all the Internet you needed, and 1G a month was more than enough total data as well.

 

[Jean Claude Vaaldamme]

It sound to me that this news is even worse for people that don't pay for internet.

 

[thestaggy]

Everything exceeds headline inflation. Except for my increase.

 

[Tantus]

Bad news for people who pay for Internet in South Africa

So, is there good news for people not paying for internet in South Africa, or is it only bad news for people paying for internet in South Africa?

 

[Swa]

Forget above inflation, any increase is anti-competitive. It should be getting cheaper.

 

[deesef]

Why highlight internet? Electricity, municipal rates and tariffs, medical costs etc have a MUCH bigger impact on my budget and these costs increase in astronomical steps every year.

Geez, even my 2 litre milk price increased by about 15% about 6 weeks ago!

 

[Heisenborg]

Bad news for people who pay for Internet in South Africa

The Competition Commission's latest Cost of Living report found that wired and wireless broadband price increases in South Africa exceeded headline inflation in 2026.

@rpm @Jan

Lekker bullshit AI slop for us. Well done guys. You get a thumbs up

 

[system32]

The competition commission needs to allow Starlink to push the prices down

 

[Tantus]

The competition commission needs to allow Starlink to push the prices down

Dreams are good friends...

 

[Heisenborg]

And to think we complained about massive headlines. Good old times

 

[Tech Guy SA]

mmm i used to pay R800 for a 10mb line capped at 30gb about 15 years ago.


paying about R880 for a 100mb line uncapped ...hell my ping is better too

explain the logic to me lol if it rose it really wasnt by much. im paying 25% more for bread that i did about a year ago...

 

[Zellephant]

Forget above inflation, any increase is anti-competitive. It should be getting cheaper.

No, it cant just get cheaper in absolute terms - times change, services change, products change. In real terms, internet has gotten a lot cheaper than it was 15 or 20 years ago - but the entire way in which we conume it has also changed.

Try take a look at what 10Mb uncapped, unshaped internet connection would have cost you in 2006? You had to be ver wealthy, or have a very serious business case to require that then - today that would be a substandard service.

But, that said, internet prices are far too expensive in SA, and bandwidth allocation is a monopoly - which is driving the higher prices

The competition commission needs to allow Starlink to push the prices down

We need starlink, but dont fool yourself thinking starlink will bring down the cost of internet connectivity to the average user - It remains an expensive way to connect to the internet. Outside of underserviced rural areas, starlink will never compete rand for rand with fibre and LTE/5G systems.

 

[DreamKing]

why "paying tax" itself is not "anti-competitive"?

not doing something?