Here's how South Africa's biggest mobile networks stack up against each other

[mylesillidge]

Vodacom vs MTN vs Telkom vs Cell C — biggest mobile network battle

Four major mobile networks are battling it out for their place in the South African market — Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, and Cell C.

According to their latest available results, these four networks had over 112 million active SIMs in the country.

 

[Bliksis]

What other mobile networks are there?

 

[Johand]

Cell C also provides a network coverage map, but it did not appear to work when zooming out over larger areas, so getting a complete perspective on its 4G coverage was impossible.

Well that seems accurate. Cell C's coverage doesn't work. I am tearing my hear out on a daily basis. Reception just went to hell. The number of times I get "Emergency Calls Only" message is insane. Living in Cape Town. My contract is up in July. Whether I like to support the underdog or not, I have to move because my phone literally doesn't work. The only reason I survive is because fibre at my home - otherwise my phone is a paperweight.

 

[richjdavies]

Would be good to understand what the technical situation is with roaming.
E.g. if I'm using MTN via Cell C ... What does that mean for my real life coverage...
Similarly is Airmobile on MTN the same coverage or not exactly?

Also did ask MyBB before but can we get some stats beyond the average speed. E.g. the median or % of time download or upload is below 2mbps or something? Too many times I have coverage (with Airmobile on MTN) but unable to do anything. Possibly that would mean upload and download is 0 dragging down the average, or does it not get recorded...

 

[BCR]

Well that seems accurate. Cell C's coverage doesn't work. I am tearing my hear out on a daily basis. Reception just went to hell. The number of times I get "Emergency Calls Only" message is insane. Living in Cape Town. My contract is up in July. Whether I like to support the underdog or not, I have to move because my phone literally doesn't work. The only reason I survive is because fibre at my home - otherwise my phone is a paperweight.

The "emergency calls only" issue must be because of loadshedding either in your area, or adjacent to you.

It's not much different - at times - on MTN for voice calls ; we don't get the same message, but outgoing calls simply don't go through at times, so need to keep retrying until they do.

That said, still sticking with MTN (particularly for making calls), because we regularly get an option to double our minutes for the same price, on prepaid.

Has happened the last 2 months in a row, and a few times prior since switch over from Cell C.

For R100, there's (often) an all-net offer of 480 minutes for 30 days, along with the standard 240 minutes.

So try testing it out before your Cell C contract ends.

Vodacom is the most reliable connection (here), but only top up occasionally per SIM for backup, even though they're our main prepaid numbers.