Big surprise in South Africa’s ISP rankings

MyBroadband released the July 2020 South African ISP rankings, which revealed that Cool Ideas, Cybersmart, MTN, Afrihost, and Vox are the top-rated Internet service providers in the country.

The rankings are based on 606,517 speed test and customer satisfaction ratings which were conducted using MyBroadband’s speed test platforms in July 2020.

The speed test results and customer satisfaction ratings were collected using MyBroadband’s iOS and Android speed test apps, and its web-based speed test platforms.

To ensure a neutral testing environment, MyBroadband’s speed test servers are hosted in Teraco’s vendor-neutral data centres.

MyBroadband has speed test servers at NAPAfrica’s peering points in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban.

After a user performs a speed test, they can rate their ISP based on their overall satisfaction with their provider.

These customer satisfaction ratings are then used to rank South Africa’s ADSL, fibre, fixed-LTE, and 5G ISPs.

It should be noted that these rankings only include fixed broadband tests which were conducted over Wi-Fi or a LAN. It therefore excludes mobile network tests.

Best and worst ISPs in South Africa

The top spots in the latest South African ISP rankings were occupied by the usual suspects – Cool Ideas, Cybersmart, MTN, Afrihost, and Vox.

There was, however, a big surprise at the bottom of the table. After many years of occupying the bottom slot, Telkom is no longer the lowest-ranked ISP.

In July, Rain was the ISP with the lowest customer satisfaction ranking, with an average customer satisfaction rating of 50%.

The reason for this low rating is two-fold – declining network performance and poor customer support.

MyBroadband has received numerous complaints from Rain subscribers about poor network speeds, especially during peak hours.

Rain subscribers are also struggling to get support from the company, which is reflected in its poor customer satisfaction ranking.

The table below provides an overview of the customer satisfaction rankings of South Africa’s prominent ISPs in July.

The average download speed, upload speed, and latency of ISPs are also provided as a reference point.

It should be noted that these speeds are technology-dependent and should therefore not been seen as a reflection of network performance.

Now read: South Africa’s top fibre and fixed-LTE ISPs during lockdown ranked