Rain speed problems

The scrapping of Rain’s uncapped 4G plans, which have previously contributed to the operator’s network issues, appears to have had little impact on its mobile speeds.

In fact, the company’s fixed speeds have worsened since the move, which coincided with the launch of its fully-fledged 4G mobile network in May 2023.

Rain positioned itself as the champion of affordable mobile data when it launched in 2018.

It rolled out several uncapped data plans for fixed and mobile use and offered a very affordable 1GB bundle price of R50.

Its 24/7 uncapped 4G plan at R479 per month, launched in early 2020, was unprecedented at the time.

However, it caused severe network deterioration as South Africans sought affordable uncapped Internet during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rain was also the first to launch fixed-5G the year before, with more affordable packages rolled out along with it.

Several years later, the company is finding it tough to compete in a market with several uncapped fixed wireless access 4G and 5G competitors on the market.

Vodacom and MTN have launched highly competitive uncapped fixed 4G and 5G plans, and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) like Afrihost Air Mobile are selling mobile data at very cheap prices.

One key development in Rain’s strategy over the past few years was the launch of its fully-fledged mobile network in May 2023, which added support for voice calls and SMSs.

At the same time, Rain also stopped sign-ups for its popular uncapped 4G products to mobile and fixed users.

In addition, the only customers who could make use of its new network were those who also took up a fixed-5G plan as part of its bundled RainOne offering.

With this decision, Rain effectively excluded all potential customers who were satisfied with their fixed connectivity packages.

One potential motivation for the move would be that it could give Rain more control over its network demand and enable it to improve performance.

MyBroadband interrogated this by assessing changes in Rain’s mobile and fixed network performance from a year before it switched on its full network to a year later.

The analysis was based on thousands of speed tests performed on the MyBroadband Speed Test app and web platform.

For clarification, Rain’s mobile 4G products include:

• Legacy Rain 4G uncapped off-peak
• Legacy Rain 4G uncapped for mobile phones
• Rain 4G customers with SIMs on RainOne
• Rain 4G customers on recently launched Rain Mobile plans

We found that Rain’s mobile download speeds had improved by 13.4% in the year leading up to RainOne’s launch. In the year since then, the improvement had slowed down to 5.7%.

Mobile upload speeds also improved 6.7% between Q2 2022 and RainOne’s launch quarter, with a marginal 0.8% increase the year thereafter.

Another important metric of network performance — latency — reduced 17% in the year up to RainOne’s launch. A year after the launch, it had dropped by another 11.3%.

The table below shows how Rain’s mobile network performance changed between Q2 2022 and Q2 2024.

Fixed taking a hit

While Rain’s overall mobile speeds have continued to improve after the RainOne launch, speeds on its fixed network have reduced.

For reference, Rain’s fixed customers include those on the following plans:

• Legacy Rain 4G fixed packages sold through third-party ISPs
• Legacy Rain 4G uncapped 24/7
• Legacy Rain 5G Basic, Standard, and Premium
• RainOne 5G with 30Mbps, 60Mbps, and 100Mbps options

Between the second quarter of 2022 and the RainOne launch quarter, Rain’s average download speed on fixed 5G and 4G packages increased by 27%.

However, since the launch of RainOne, the speeds have declined by 11.8%.

Average upload speeds have plummeted, although the biggest decline occurred before RainOne rolled out.

From 19.72Mbps in Q2 2022, average uploads more than halved to 9.46Mbps. As of Q2 2024, the average was 9.02Mbps.

It should be noted that Rain’s fixed packages have set speeds of “up to” 10Mbps for its legacy 4G uncapped product and 30Mbps, 60Mbps, and 100Mbps for its new packages.

The fact that the average speed is close to the entry-level 5G package’s speed could suggest that many customers are using that product.

However, other factors like range to a Wi-Fi router and obstacles between the user and the router could also influence speeds.

One area where Rain has undoubtedly improved the performance of its fixed network is in latency.

This is most likely due to no new customers using its fixed uncapped 4G products and some existing customers migrating to other uncapped 4G products, many of which now offer better value than Rain’s plan.

However, the 50.27ms average latency is still some way off of what users can typically expect from 5G, so it seems likely that Rain still has several fixed 4G users.

The table below summarises the changes in Rain’s fixed network speeds and latency in the year before and after RainOne’s launch.