Mobile network operator Capex comparison

[Jan]

Vodacom and MTN networks get big upgrades while Telkom plays catchup

Vodacom and MTN are aggressively competing for the crown of best mobile network in South Africa, while Telkom is busy playing catch up, and Cell C is getting left behind.

Capital expenditure (capex) indicates how much companies like network operators are investing in their networks.

 

[Dups!]

Next time please do not mention Cell C, that is no network anymore. It is now a hang-on.

 

[BCR]

The article mentions Vodacom spent the most on their network, then MTN followed by Telkom.


Ironically (on LTE) for me, Telkom is by far the fastest (up to about 90 Mbps), then MTN (around 35 Mbps) followed by Vodacom (max of 25 Mbps when I last tested them about 4 - 6 months ago).

I'm currently switching back to Telkom (on Axxess) from MTN (on Afrihost) not even because of the speeds, but better capped LTE data - price options for what we consume.

 

[JonOpollo]

The article mentions Vodacom spent the most on their network, then MTN followed by Telkom.


Ironically (on LTE) for me, Telkom is by far the fastest (up to about 90 Mbps), then MTN (around 35 Mbps) followed by Vodacom (max of 25 Mbps when I last tested them about 4 - 6 months ago).

I'm currently switching back to Telkom (on Axxess) from MTN (on Afrihost) not even because of the speeds, but better capped LTE data - price options for what we consume.

Same here sorta, Telkom fastest, Vodacom 2nd (with most bands in area), rain (shares tower with vodacom/telkom) then mtn and cellc who are useless. Just have a weird thing where vodacom switches off certain bands exactly at midnight here. Very area dependant in terms of performance in my experience.

 

[BCR]

Same here sorta, Telkom fastest, Vodacom 2nd (with most bands in area), rain (shares tower with vodacom/telkom) then mtn and cellc who are useless. Just have a weird thing where vodacom switches off certain bands exactly at midnight here. Very area dependant in terms of performance in my experience.

Cell C wasn't that bad for most of the time I was on the 50 + 50 GB ; towards the end (of my use, not when they took it away) I was down to between 8 - 15 Mbps down.

Rain were disastrous on the 2 occasions I tried them, approximately a year apart.
I thought they might've improved their 4G towers near me, but both times I couldn't even get to 1 Mbps, both down & up.

According to their map there were towers relatively close by ; wanted to at least try that uncapped for R249, 18 or 19 hrs per day / night, but wasn't worth the bother.

At least there are large capped products these days, so no throttling / intentional speed limiting on them (I'm thinking Telkom, for my current use-case).

EDIT - post/s mainly not capex related.