Mobile data speeds in top South African neighbourhoods faster than fixed broadband

Jan

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Interesting trend in South Africa's neighbourhoods with the highest broadband speeds

The results of the Q4 2021 MyBroadband Insights speed test reveal that mobile broadband speeds in South Africa’s top neighbourhoods are significantly higher than average fixed broadband speeds.

For these results, MyBroadband Insights used data collected from MyBroadband’s Android and iOS speed test apps between 1 October 2021 and 31 December 2021.
 
TBH, I'm not surprised. But that is less of a technology/availability issue and more of a pricing/contract issue:
Fixed Broadband = Pay for a line speed of your choice but (usually) get unlimited data.
Mobile Broadband = Typical price is less than Fixed Broadband but (usually) got a very low cap, FUP or limitations.

I'd love to see the same comparison for "Average data used by neighborhood"
 
saor said:
Why is 5G considered fixed broadband?
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Rain is the main driver in this regard. They only offer 5G as a fixed broadband service and this is increasing the average fixed broadband speed.
 
saor said:
Why is 5G is considered fixed broadband?
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Exactly, mobile broadband is the telecoms equivalent of the Gillette business model as most aren't uncapped.

"Sure you can have 50Mbps LTE with CGNAT, but at R70/GB lol".
 
That's because the speed of a tower is based on the usage. Tower is faster because there more fixed line traffic.

Also, what is up with the high latency in Bryanston (48ms avg on fixed line)? my fibre latency to mybb is 1-2ms in CPT
 
Ferog said:
Exactly, mobile broadband is the telecoms equivalent of the Gillette business model as most aren't uncapped.

"Sure you can have 50Mbps LTE with CGNAT, but at R70/GB lol".
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Lol, get your head out of the stone ages, bulk mobile data is around R1-R2 these day's.
 
airborne said:
Lol, get your head out of the stone ages, bulk mobile data is around R1-R2 these day's.
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You do know the lower LSM market doesn't have the cash to buy larger data bundles to get better value? Do you think everyone has R300-500 a month to buy data?

Many poor people buy in R10-50 increments so just because you can get better value, it doesn't mean that the township people can afford it.

Im fortunate, I don't care about any data, but not everyone is like people on this forum.
 
Ferog said:
You do know the lower LSM market doesn't have the cash to buy larger data bundles to get better value? Do you think everyone has R300-500 a month to buy data?

Many poor people buy in R10-50 increments so just because you can get better value, it doesn't mean that the township people can afford it.

Im fortunate, I don't care about any data, but not everyone is like people on this forum.
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Which has no bearing on the context of this thread where we are comparing the speeds and data quantities of mobile to fixed broadband and the cost thereof. Apple's to apples..
 
"My Broadband", Your survey is flawed, you should let the people that have fixed broadband do their Speedtest on a PC that is hard wired to get their real speed and latency. A lot of handheld devices are still limited to 54Mbps wifi. Look at your results, fixed broadband in this tests tops at about that. If you compare like that you might as well have limited the mobile speedtests say to 3G and not higher technologies. Do the survey proper and let's the results again...!!!
 
Not to mention the crap Wi-Fi router's most ISPs hand out.

There is a valuable article there.
 
Gerber2896 said:
"My Broadband", Your survey is flawed, you should let the people that have fixed broadband do their Speedtest on a PC that is hard wired to get their real speed and latency. A lot of handheld devices are still limited to 54Mbps wifi. Look at your results, fixed broadband in this tests tops at about that. If you compare like that you might as well have limited the mobile speedtests say to 3G and not higher technologies. Do the survey proper and let's the results again...!!!
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This is an interesting observation you made. I see in the table provided not a single speed test went over 570Mbit, and then I noticed it:
For these results, MyBroadband Insights used data collected from MyBroadband’s Android and iOS speed test apps between 1 October 2021 and 31 December 2021.
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I wonder what the max speeds of fixed vs mobile would be if wired connections were included. I assume it would be a lot more difficult to pinpoint exactly which area a desktop speed test is from so not as easy to compare, unfortunately.

In my area the max fixed connection speed is a little over 300Mbit according to the link, so either no one has 500Mbit OpenServe connections - or their WiFi can't handle such high speeds - or of course, no one did a MyBB speed test, but probably that the WiFi can't handle such high speeds as you also mentioned.

On topic:

It does look like most people opt for 50Mbit connections though so the mobile average being higher looks exactly as expected.
 
I think you got it spot on. Crappy WiFi radios in smartphones are the limiting factor.
 
This mostly has to do with going above 20/10Mbps doesn't make sense for most, their usage is YT, maybe a video call or something, the bandwidth usage is minimal, and the cost there means a lot more (it's ~R600 for that speed on Vuma). Why would they pay R1k for 100/100Mbps? Quite different for IT people / those on this forum as we spend a lot of time on our devices, most of us probably stream a lot, download a lot from steam, etc.

On mobile you get the full speed usually for what the tower can offer as you usually pay per GB.

The entire fixed broadband speed limitation is a business marketing thing to up have people upgrade to higher tiers. I'd love to see a package of e.g. guaranteed 50Mbps during peak or whatever, but allowed to burst to 1Gbps when network underutilized, since infrastructure is paid monthly anyways. You pay for that peak guarantee, but the issue is that most will not upgrade/pay the extra, and it will cannibalize the higher packages, so lower profit. You'll probably rarely ever lose customers from your network though.
 
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