Neighbourhoods with the highest broadband speeds in South Africa

New research by Analytico shows that Fairland in Randburg has the fastest mobile broadband speeds, while Weltevredenpark in Roodepoort has the highest average fixed broadband speeds.

The findings are based on speed tests conducted using MyBroadband’s speed test app between 1 July and 31 September 2022.

MyBroadband’s speed test servers are hosted in Teraco’s vendor-neutral data centres, guaranteeing a neutral testing environment for consumers to test their connections.

Through NAPAfrica, network operators have a free 10Gbps connection to MyBroadband’s speed test platform at its peering points.

Despite Fairland in Randburg’s average mobile broadband speed dropping significantly between Q2 and Q3 2022, it retained its position as the South African neighbourhood with the fastest speeds.

Fairland in Randburg recorded an average mobile broadband download speed of 128.46Mbps — down from 164.39Mbps last quarter.

Noordwyk in Randburg — the runner-up during Q3 2022 — achieved an average download speed of 110.95Mbps, pushing the once-fastest neighbourhood of Sandown in Sandton further down the list.

Notably, Sandown was the runner-up in Analytico’s Q2 and year-to-date reports, which included data up to 31 August 2022. However, it dropped to sixth place during the third quarter of 2022.

Sandown achieved an average download speed of 93.74Mbps during Q3 2022, down from 118.70Mbps as of 31 August 2022.

Durbanville in Cape Town moved up to third place during the quarter, achieving an average download speed of 109.99Mbps.

Regarding average upload speeds, the competition was close, with speeds ranging from 20.41Mbps to 25.90Mbps for the top ten neighbourhoods.

Interestingly, average mobile broadband download speeds dropped during the third quarter, with five of the top ten neighbourhoods achieving a speed of over 100Mbps.

All neighbourhoods in the top ten for Q2 2022 achieved average download speeds exceeding 100Mbps.

Weltevredenpark in Roodepoort achieved the highest fixed broadband speeds at 53.05Mbps. The runner-up — Protea Hoogte in Cape Town — recorded average fixed broadband download speeds of 50.45Mbps.

This is a slight improvement over Q2 2022 results when none of the neighbourhoods in the top ten achieved speeds higher than 50Mbps.

However, Weltevredenpark and Protea Hoogte were the only neighbourhoods to achieve the feat in Q3 2022, with third place being held by Bryanston in Sandton with an average download speed of 49.13Mbps.

Four of the top ten neighbourhoods for fixed broadband achieved average upload speeds of over 50Mbps, with Weltervredenpark and Protea Hoogte recording speeds of 51.25Mbps and 51.37Mbps, respectively.

The neighbourhood with the highest average upload speed is Pinelands in Cape Town at 55.30Mbps.

It should be noted that although per-neighbourhood fixed broadband speeds are lower on average than mobile data, that doesn’t mean fibre is slower than 4G (or 5G).

Fixed broadband services like fibre are generally sold uncapped but rate-limited.

You can use as much data as you want, but your throughput is limited to speeds ranging from 20Mbps to 1Gbps. More expensive packages offer higher maximum speeds.

Mobile broadband is often sold in capped data bundles and with speeds unbounded.

Therefore, the mobile broadband speeds listed here are an average of the fastest speeds measured over the medium.

On the other hand, the fixed broadband averages indicate which uncapped packages are most popular in South Africa.

In this case, it appears most households opt for services with 50Mbps download and upload speeds — a typical configuration available from fibre providers.

The tables below summarise the top ten South African neighbourhoods with the highest average mobile and fixed broadband speeds for the third quarter of 2022.

Now read: HeroTel, Afrihost, and Cool Ideas safe — but Webafrica and Cell C at big risk