Blazingly-fast Metrofibre-Greencom FTTH tested

Metrofibre Networx has quietly launched fibre-to-the-home services in Midrand, offering uncapped broadband to residents of Glenferness at very competitive rates through partner Internet service provider Greencom.

Greencom offers uncapped FTTH services ranging from 10Mbps at R683 per month to 100Mbps for R2,849 per month.

A user who purchased a symmetrical 25Mbps connection from the ISP for R854 per month agreed to perform some testing on their line.

The results were, in one word, impressive.

Speedtest.net results

SpeedTest — Johannesburg

MyBroadband SpeedTest — Johannesburg server

MyBroadband SpeedTest — Cape Town server

Results from various Speedtest.net servers show that local speeds and latencies are what you would expect from a high-end fibre connection.

To servers in Johannesburg, the connection achieved latencies of 5ms and 7ms, download speeds close to the 25Mbps maximum of the line, and upload speeds between 22Mbps and 24Mbps.

On MyBroadband’s Speedtest server in Cape Town, the connection performed almost the same as it did on the Johannesburg server, albeit with somewhat higher latency.

Download speeds

Guild Wars 2 Update

Steam download

Unity download in Firefox

BitTorrent test

Real-world downloads from various sites and services also performed well.

Downloads through Steam, BitTorrent, and a web browser ran either at or near the maximum the line could achieve.

• BitTorrent: 25Mbps
• Guild Wars: 3MB/s (24Mbps)
• Steam: 2.9MB/s peak (23.2Mbps)
• Unity download through Firefox: 2.4MB/s (19.2Mbps)

Video streaming

1080p YouTube test

Video Game High School HFR test

Another important test for a modern broadband connection is its ability to stream high-quality video.

The 25Mbps connection from Greencom was able to comfortably stream 1080p video from YouTube and video with high frame rate (HFR) components.

RocketJump, the makers of popular web series Video Game High School, shot parts of the second season in 48 frames per second HFR, with the sections that were shot at a higher frame indicating which parts of the action were “in-game”.

Streaming video from RocketJump tests two things: how well the connection handles video that requires a higher bitrate than HD, and how well it handles video that is probably not cached locally.

Cheap, fast broadband

Based on our tester’s experience on a 25Mbps FTTH connection from Greencom, the ISP offers services that are not only well priced, but also perform well under real-world circumstances.

If you’re one of the lucky few who are able to get their hands on home fibre connections like this, it is definitely worth considering

Thanks to Julian Pritchard for his thorough testing of his shiny new broadband connection.

More fibre-to-the-home news

Greatest fibre-to-the-home deals in South Africa

SA is getting worse: ICT report

1Gbps uncapped fibre-to-the-home for R799

South Africans are getting nailed over broadband prices