RainOne turns 1 — and showing growth

Mobile network operator Rain says its RainOne bundled product has been growing consistently since its launch around a year ago.

The RainOne plans were introduced in May 2023, offering customers packages that combine one of Rain’s fixed-5G plans with two Rain 4G mobile SIMs.

The fixed-5G plans offer speeds of 30Mbps, 60Mbps, or 100Mbps and above.

Pricing starts at R595 per month for a 30Mbps fixed-5G plan and two 4G SIMs, each with 2GB of monthly mobile data, 60 voice minutes, and 100 SMSs.

Customers can upgrade their fixed-5G speeds to 60Mbps for an additional R200 per month or 100Mbps and higher for an extra R400 per month.

Rain also lets users increase the data, minutes, and SMS on their mobile plans into five higher “levels”, each costing R75 more and adding 1GB of mobile data and 30 voice minutes.

Up to the launch of RainOne, the operator offered its uncapped mobile 4G and fixed-5G products separately.

Due to the low pricing of the uncapped 4G SIM, Rain had several mobile-only customers with their own fixed products.

While existing customers can continue to use these products, Rain no longer allows new sign-ups for standalone 4G or 5G.

Instead, any person interested in its new 4G SIM plans, which are capped, must also take up a fixed-5G product.

This approach eliminates the potential to gain customers who already have a fast and uncapped fixed Internet service, like fibre.

Despite this, Rain told MyBroadband that RainOne was growing consistently, with a noticeable increase in consumer demand and positive customer feedback since the introduction of its the101 5G smart router in November 2023.

In addition to packing improved network performance, Wi-Fi speeds, and a touch display, the router can be customised with one of various skins for a more personalised look.

Rain would not say whether it will offer separate 4G and 5G products again.

However, the operator did say it had an exciting roadmap for the near future.

Rain was the first network to launch 5G packages in South Africa, although it is yet to offer mobile 5G services like Vodacom, MTN, and Telkom.

RainOne’s 5G plans remain a great option for fixed broadband customers, even if they don’t end up using the 4G SIMs.

The most affordable uncapped 5G packages from rival services like Afrihost, Axxess, MTN, and Telkom start at R449 and go up to around R1,000.

However, all of these plans have fair usage policies (FUPs) that limit speeds after a certain amount of consumption in the month.

For example, the entry-level option from Axxess only supports speeds of up to 500Mbps for the first 300GB of usage. After this is used, speeds are throttled to 2Mbps.

For R599 per month, slightly more than RainOne’s entry-level plan, this threshold increases to 450GB.

Afrihost’s Pure 5G uncapped packages on MTN’s network start at R60 more expensive than Rain’s 30Mbps plans.

While this option offers 20Mbps higher speeds, it comes with an FUP of 1TB, after which speeds are throttled to 1Mbps for the rest of a month.

While Rain initially throttled certain usage, like torrent downloads and streaming, it no longer implements FUPs on its network.

The table below compares the speeds, FUPs, and prices of RainOne plans with those available from Afrihost, Axxess, MTN, Supersonic, and Telkom.