MTN and Axxess beats Rain, Supersonic, Telkom in fixed-5G price shootout

MTN and Axxess offer some of the most affordable fixed-5G packages in South Africa, a MyBroadband analysis has revealed.

The country’s mobile network operators invest billions in their 5G networks to ensure reliable customer connectivity and expand coverage. Players like MTN, Rain, and Telkom offer 5G coverage in most of the country’s major metros.

MyBroadband compared fixed-5G packages available from various South African Internet service providers regarding pricing, speeds, and fair usage policies (FUP).

FUPs implement data consumption thresholds on fixed-5G packages and throttle speeds once that limit is reached to reduce congestion on mobile towers.

Mobile operators implement FUPs to protect the integrity of their networks and ensure all customers have reliable connectivity.

MTN recently launched uncapped Shesh@ Home Internet packages that give customers a taste of fixed-5G speeds for less than R400 a month.

While these are the most affordable options in the comparison, it should be noted that they only offer fixed-5G connectivity for a portion of their FUP threshold, after which the connection is downgraded to LTE.

Two MTN Shesh@ Home Internet packages are available. The first, Shesh@200, costs R329 per month and offers the best 5G speeds until a 100GB data threshold is reached.

Thereafter, speeds are throttled to 10Mbps for a further 100GB before reducing to 512Kbps for the remainder of the billing period.

MTN also offers a Shesh@600 package, which provides best-effort 5G speeds for 300GB of data before reducing speeds to 20Mbps for a further 300GB and then to 512Kbps for the remainder of the month.

The MTN Shesh@600 package costs R399 per month.

Axxess’ MTN Home Standard 5G and Vodacom Home Standard 5G packages are the next-most affordable at R449 and R495 per month, respectively.

Both packages offer best-effort speeds until customers reach the monthly FUP threshold.

However, Axxess’ MTN Home 5G packages have slightly higher FUP thresholds. The Axxess MTN Home Standard 5G package provides best effort speeds until a threshold of 300GB before throttling speeds to 2Mbps.

In comparison, the Axxess Vodacom Home Standard 5G has an FUP threshold of 250GB before throttling speeds to 2Mbps.

Telkom’s 5G Internet 40Mbps package offers the highest FUP threshold for under R500 per month.

It provides speeds of up to 40Mbps for 1TB, then reduces speeds to 4Mbps for 50GB, before throttling to 2Mbps for the remainder of the billing cycle.

The table below compares fixed-5G packages available from various South African providers in terms of speeds, limitations, and pricing.