Cell C's new prepaid fixed-LTE tested

Hanno Labuschagne

Hanno Labuschagne

Journalist
Staff member
Joined
Sep 2, 2019
Messages
6,544
Reaction score
4,845
Cell C's new prepaid fixed-LTE tested

Cell C’s new Home Connecta Flexi performed exceptionally well when used as a mobile data service in a high-end smartphone.

This was revealed in drive tests performed by MyBroadband around Gauteng using Samsung Galaxy S9 and Huawei P40 Pro smartphones.

Cell C launched its new Home Connecta Flexi products last month, offering prepaid LTE plans starting at R59 for 5GB anytime data and 5GB after-hours data.
 
I'm glad that somebody is getting good speeds. I know of many people getting really bad speeds and it's a mission to get help from CellC.

I average about 3-4Mbps and on a good day (which doesn't happen often) I'll get 5-6Mbps
 
Sounds great........but does this effectively mean MTN performance at Cell C prices?? If it does, I will take it all day.
 
Gazg said:
Sounds great........but does this effectively mean MTN performance at Cell C prices?? If it does, I will take it all day.
Click to expand...
In a perfect world yes, but so far it's highly dependent on your location and which towers are being used / roamed on, and by extension via Cell C on MTN or MTN directly. A good chunk of people are only getting passable speeds compared to Süpersonic / MTN directly but I presume this will sort itself out eventually.

EDIT: ah, cavedog's explanation makes much more sense, the region dependant situation is still a concern but otherwise is still decent for the offer
 
Last edited:
Gazg said:
Sounds great........but does this effectively mean MTN performance at Cell C prices?? If it does, I will take it all day.
Click to expand...

No it does not. MTN has a far superior network and maybe only allow certain amount of bandwidth to Cellc users roaming. There will be no way MTN will allow full access to Cellc users knowing it's the competition and the price per bundle is lower.

That said it's pretty decent. Not location or device locked and works as long as you have 4G coverage in any device that supports 4G and offers more data than the MTN fixed LTE packages at lower prices.
 
If you keep on advertising this offer too many people will go for it and make Cellc another Rain. Next things will be a MyBB thread full of frustrations, unmet expectations. Better be quiet about it.
 
Still no mention of this being promotional prices.
 
Saw the article last week, so tested over Easter weekend away - West Coast, MTN coverage only, using a Vodafone R218 mobile router. Worked a treat, data was on me for the weekend for everybody. Down and up was about 8 MBPS. My two concerns were that the router would be blocked by MTN and that I would not be able to use it at another tower. Good news is it stayed up for 3 days, but have not tried it on another MTN tower again. Currently sitting at home on the CellC network, 37 down and 22 up, 15ms ping.
 
Thanks for the tests Mybb! I will test this in a month's time when I will need internet access in a more rural setting, but surprisingly has cellc lte coverage.
 
I bought a Cell C SIM today to try out but I could not get it to work at all in a 3G portable Huawei router or in a Samsung tablet with 4G but it worked fine in a Huawei B622 fixed router. Maximum download speeds were about 10mbps. Below is result of a test I just did now. With MTN Fixed LTE I get more than twice these speeds.
1618255427336.png
The person who sold me the SIM in the Cell C shop told me that it was fixed to my home address and it would not connect if I moved to another site. Just like MTN fixed LTE.
If MyBroadband got it to work in a cellphone, it should work in my Samsung tablet. Has anyone got ideas on why it doesn't and how to get it to work?
 
It won't roam on MTN, it will show it is connected but can not surf the web. That's using a dual SIM Xaiomi redmi note 8 phone. I do have a B618 router I will try with that later. Can you let me know if you can use MTN towers with home connecta?
 
charlieb said:
I bought a Cell C SIM today to try out but I could not get it to work at all in a 3G portable Huawei router or in a Samsung tablet with 4G but it worked fine in a Huawei B622 fixed router. Maximum download speeds were about 10mbps. Below is result of a test I just did now. With MTN Fixed LTE I get more than twice these speeds.
View attachment 1051033
The person who sold me the SIM in the Cell C shop told me that it was fixed to my home address and it would not connect if I moved to another site. Just like MTN fixed LTE.
If MyBroadband got it to work in a cellphone, it should work in my Samsung tablet. Has anyone got ideas on why it doesn't and how to get it to work?
Click to expand...

It only works on 4G. On 3G you have network but no data access at all.

It meant to be used in a router but works in any device that supports 4G and it's not location locked yet.
 
uchoose said:
It won't roam on MTN, it will show it is connected but can not surf the web. That's using a dual SIM Xaiomi redmi note 8 phone. I do have a B618 router I will try with that later. Can you let me know if you can use MTN towers with home connecta?
Click to expand...

You can't roam on MTN. The Cellc and MTN roaming is seamless. It will always show Cellc as your network but the actual tower being used might be a MTN tower.

You would need to compare Cell IDs of MTN and Cellc to see if you are roaming or not.
 
Won't they lock you to a specific tower? Maybe not today, but next month after you went through all the trouble to sign up.
 
jacauc said:
Won't they lock you to a specific tower? Maybe not today, but next month after you went through all the trouble to sign up.
Click to expand...
Then I'll just move back to the 50gb for R500 deal. It wasn't much trouble to sign up anyway. Grabbed a pre rica'd sim from a superette nearby popped it into the phone this morning and migrated with the USSD in the article.
 
uchoose said:
It won't roam on MTN, it will show it is connected but can not surf the web. That's using a dual SIM Xaiomi redmi note 8 phone. I do have a B618 router I will try with that later. Can you let me know if you can use MTN towers with home connecta?
Click to expand...
I've struggled with this service on the exact same model phone.

What worked for me was to manually delete all the APNs from the sim card, then created a new APN called "internet". Came online almost immediately thereafter.
 
cavedog said:
You can't roam on MTN. The Cellc and MTN roaming is seamless. It will always show Cellc as your network but the actual tower being used might be a MTN tower.

You would need to compare Cell IDs of MTN and Cellc to see if you are roaming or not.
Click to expand...
I see on the cell C Home Connecta webpage says it works on 1800Mhz and 2300Mhz - since when did Cell C have 2300mhz spectrum?

Cell C on left and MTN on right.
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot 2021-06-23 at 15.32.25.png
    Screenshot 2021-06-23 at 15.32.25.png
    183.1 KB · Views: 16
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X