Rain’s 5G plans for Cape Town and Durban
Rain launched its new 5G service in Gauteng in September 2019, and the operator is now working around the clock to get its 5G network live in Cape Town.
Rain’s 5G service offers subscribers uncapped data with average speeds of 200Mbps for R1,000 per month.
Considering its excellent value, demand for this service has been high, especially in areas where there are no fibre-to-the-home networks.
To date, the service has only been launched in Gauteng, where Rain is aggressively growing its network.
Rain CEO Willem Roos told MyBroadband they are continuing to expand their 5G footprint in Gauteng with new sites going live every week.
“As sites go live our coverage map reflects that. Prospective Gauteng customers can go onto the website and check if they are in a coverage area,” Roos said.
Many people in Cape Town and Durban are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Rain’s 5G network in their neighbourhoods, but they will have to wait for a bit longer.
“We are working around the clock to get the 5G network live in Cape Town and we hope to launch well before the end of 2020,” Roos told MyBroadband.
The timeline for Durban, however, is a bit more uncertain but they hope to also achieve that within the year.
Vodacom and MTN also rolling out 5G networks
Last month, Vodacom launched its 5G mobile network in three cities – Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Cape Town.
Vodacom’s 5G network supports both mobile and fixed-wireless services and is currently available on 20 live 5G sites – 18 of which are in Gauteng, and two of which are in Cape Town.
Vodacom used temporary spectrum from ICASA to fast-track the launch of its 5G network, which can only be used until November.
The good news is that Vodacom’s 5G service will remain live after the temporary spectrum licence has expired.
At that point, Vodacom will roam entirely on Liquid Telecom’s 5G network. The loss of temporary spectrum will therefore not impact Vodacom’s 5G customer experience or its rollout.
More competition in the 5G market is expected when MTN launches its first commercial 5G service later this month.
MTN plans to launch its new 5G network in June, and it has started to promote its 5G value proposition in its latest Y’ello magazine.
MTN said both post-paid and prepaid customers with 5G-enabled devices and an LTE SIM card qualify for the service.
The 5G service is set to be available on current LTE SIM card customer price plan rates.
The coverage maps below show where Rain 5G and Vodacom 5G are currently available in Gauteng and Cape Town.
Rain 5G coverage in Gauteng (darker blue)
Vodacom 5G coverage in Gauteng and Cape Town (red)
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