Telkom’s secret 5G price cuts
Telkom quietly revamped its Home 5G product line-up in 2024, making it far more competitive with rival offerings from Vodacom, MTN, and Rain.
The mobile network operator launched its 5G network in October 2022.
It soon started offering fixed-5G packages with 50Mbps, 100Mbps, and best-effort speeds. These started from R878 on a 36-month contract or R979 on a 24-month contract.
MyBroadband’s early price comparison found these products were simply not competitive with other fixed-5G packages on the market at the time.
Aside from being much more expensive, the competition boasted month-to-month plans with free-to-use routers instead of locking users into contracts.
Telkom kept its 5G product offering the same until at least March 2024. In the months that followed, a significant unannounced revamp occurred.
While Telkom still requires that customers sign up for a 24-month contract to take up its Home 5G packages, it has reduced the starting price to R499 per month on a new entry-level package with a 40Mbps speed.
While the speed is a bit slower, this package’s fair usage policy (FUP) is much improved, making it a significantly better option for users who consume large amounts of data every month.
Where Telkom previously started throttling users to 4Mbps after the month’s first 500GB consumption on the cheapest package, it now only implements the speed reduction after 1TB consumption.
The two other new packages offer up to 70Mbps and 100Mbps speeds and are priced at R699 and R999, respectively. They also boast less restrictive FUPs.
The table below summarises the changes in Telkom’s fixed-5G products for home users.
| Old speed | Entry-level | Mid-tier | Top end |
|---|---|---|---|
| Old speed | Up to 50Mbps | Up to 100Mbps | Best-effort |
| Old FUP | After 500GB: Throttled to 4Mbps After 550GB: Throttled to 2Mbps | After 1TB: Throttled to 4Mbps After 1.05TB: Throttled to 2Mbps | After 2TB: Throttled to 4Mbps After 2.05TB: Throttled to 2Mbps |
| Old monthly price | R979 | R1,129 | R1,229 |
| New speed | Up to 40Mbps | Up to 70Mbps | Up to 100Mbps |
| New FUP | After 1TB: Throttled to 4Mbps After 1.05TB: Throttled to 2Mbps | After 1.5TB: Throttled to 4Mbps After 1.55TB: Throttled to 2Mbps | After 2TB: Throttled to 4Mbps After 2.05TB: Throttled to 2Mbps |
| New monthly price | R499 | R699 | R999 |
Telkom facing off
With these changes, Telkom has made itself a much more viable option for those requiring the fastest and lowest latency connectivity available to home users outside fibre-to-the-home.
Telkom’s new pricing and FUPs compete well with Rain and MTN’s uncapped 5G products.
The 40Mbps package is faster than Rain’s 30Mbps product and costs R126 less.
While Rain also offers two 4G SIMs for free with this package, those might not be of much value to customers who already have other mobile network providers.
Telkom’s price also matches MTN’s entry-level 35Mbps product, while offering a much better FUP.
The 70Mbps package is also R126 less than Rain’s 60Mbps package and matches the price of MTN’s 60Mbps product.
The upside to using MTN and Rain is that their packages are month-to-month and come with free-to-use routers.
MyBroadband also considered how Telkom’s new packages compare with those of third-party Internet service providers (ISPs) that resell 5G products, such as Axxess, Afrihost, Supersonic, and Vox.
The most affordable option among them was available from Supersonic at R399, R100 cheaper than Telkom.
However, it comes with a far more restrictive 400GB FUP and requires the customer to pay R1,999 once-off for a 5G router.
That amount is not too far off the total additional R2,400 you would pay on the Telkom contract.
The second most affordable package is priced at R449 per month through Axxess, R50 cheaper than Telkom’s most affordable package.
It boasts speeds of up to 500Mbps but comes with a FUP that limits speeds to 2Mbps after 300GB of consumption. It also requires a router, which is available at a discounted price of R1,499 from Axxess itself.
Overall, we found Telkom’s FUP to be far less restrictive than the competition.
The table below compares fixed-5G packages available from major mobile networks and ISPs in South Africa. Where pricing was identical, we ranked packages according to best FUP.
| ISP/Network | Speeds | FUP | Router | Monthly price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Supersonic/MTN | Up to 200Mbps | After 400GB: Throttled to 10Mbps | R1,999 once-off | R399 |
| Axxess/MTN | Up to 500Mbps | After 300GB: Throttled to 2Mbps | R1,499 once-off | R449 |
| Axxess/Vodacom | Up to 500Mbps | After 250GB: Throttled to 2Mbps | R1,499 once-off | R495 |
| MTN/MTN | Up to 35Mbps | After 500GB: Throttled to 1Mbps | Free-to-use | R499 |
| Telkom/Telkom | Up to 40Mbps | After 1TB: Throttled to 4Mbps After 1.05TB: Throttled to 2Mbps | Included on contract | R499 (×24) |
| Supersonic/MTN | Up to 200Mbps | After 1TB: Throttled to 10Mbps | R1,999 once-off | R599 |
| Axxess/MTN | Up to 500Mbps | After 450GB: Throttled to 2Mbps | R1,499 once-off | R599 |
| Rain/Rain | Up to 30Mbps | None | Free-to-use | R625 |
| Axxess/Vodacom | Up to 500Mbps | After 350GB: Throttled to 2Mbps | R1,499 once-off | R695 |
| Telkom/Telkom | Up to 100Mbps | After 1.5TB: Throttled to 4Mbps After 1.55TB: Throttled to 2Mbps | Included on contract | R699 (×24) |
| Axxess/MTN | Up to 500Mbps | After 600GB: Throttled to 2Mbps | R1,499 once-off | R699 |
| MTN/MTN | Up to 60Mbps | After 800GB: Throttled to 2Mbps | Free-to-use | R699 |
| Supersonic/MTN | Up to 200Mbps | After 400GB: Throttled to 10Mbps | Free-to-use | R699 |
| Afrihost/MTN | Up to 50Mbps | After 1TB: Throttled to 1Mbps | R2,999 once-off | R749 |
| Rain/Rain | Up to 60Mbps | None | Free-to-use | R825 |
| Afrihost/MTN | Up to 100Mbps | After 1TB: Throttled to 1Mbps | R2,999 once-off | R849 |
| Vox/MTN | Up to 300Mbps | After 1TB: Throttled to 1Mbps | R2,300 once-off | R895 |
| Axxess/Vodacom | Up to 500Mbps | After 550GB: Throttled to 2Mbps | R1,499 once-off | R895 |
| Axxess/MTN | Up to 500Mbps | After 1TB: Throttled to 2Mbps | R1,499 once-off | R899 |
| Afrihost/MTN | Best effort (average of 246Mpbs) | After 1TB: Throttled to 1Mbps | R2,999 once-off | R949 |
| Axxess/Vodacom | Up to 500Mbps | After 750GB: Throttled to 2Mbps | R1,499 once-off | R995 |
| Telkom/Telkom | Up to 100Mbps | After 2TB: Throttled to 4Mbps After 2.05TB: Throttled to 2Mbps | Included on contract | R999 (×24) |
| MTN/MTN | Best effort | After 1/5TB: Throttled to 2Mbps | Free-to-use | R999 |
| Rain/Rain | Up to 100Mbps | None | Free-to-use | R1,025 |
| Vox/MTN | Up to 300Mbps | After 2TB: Throttled to 1Mbps | R2,300 once-off | R1,599 |
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