Uncapped price war — Fibre versus 5G

5G broadband is often promoted as an alternative to fibre. However, a MyBroadband analysis shows that it is still on the high end of the pricing spectrum.

The wireless technology can achieve download speeds of over 100Mbps in South Africa.

However, Rain and MTN set their 5G prices at R999 per month, and 100Mbps fibre packages are available for somewhat cheaper than that.

MyBroadband compared pricing for Rain’s and MTN’s uncapped 5G packages to 100Mbps fibre products available through Afrihost.

The cheapest package — which offers symmetrical download and upload speeds of 100Mbps — is available on Zoom Fibre’s network for R847 per month.

MetroFibre and Vumatel’s Vuma Reach networks offer packages with 100Mbps download speeds for R897 per month.

It should be noted that MetroFibre’s product is symmetrical, while Vuma Reach has an upload speed of 50Mbps.

The same can be said for Openserve’s 100Mbps package, which is available for R947 monthly.

Frogfoot and Mitsol’s networks provide symmetrical 100Mbps speeds for R927 per month, while Vumatel’s 100Mbps Core package goes for R929 per month.

Of the packages compared, only two 100Mbps fibre products are more expensive than MTN’s and Rain’s top 5G offerings.

Vodacom’s symmetrical 100Mbps package is available for R1,037 per month, while Evotel’s will cost R1,147 monthly.

It is important to note that although 5G networks can achieve download speeds higher than 100Mbps, it is improbable that upload rates will be as high.

A recent MyBroadband analysis revealed that MTN’s 5G network achieved average download speeds of 246Mbps, while average upload speeds were significantly lower at 50Mbps.

Another aspect to consider is the fair usage policies (FUPs) governing uncapped wireless broadband services like 5G.

For instance, MTN’s FUP will throttle speeds to 4Mbps once a soft cap of 2 terabytes has been reached.

MTN previously explained that it implements FUPs on its uncapped products to protect the integrity of its network.

Supersonic’s fair use

Rain said all of its 5G Home products are uncapped but added that it offers products that provide varying speeds and apply feature streaming resolution limitations to create different price points to match customer needs.

Rain’s premium 5G package for R999 per month is its best-effort offering and allows multiple concurrent streams at 1080p resolution.

It limits speeds and streaming qualities on its lower-tier packages.

The prices of MTN’s and Rain’s uncapped 5G products are compared to 100Mbps fibre packages available from Afrihost on a range of networks.

Now read: Everyone in South Africa can have cheap and fast broadband — with some forward-thinking