Vodacom and MTN rule on the Gautrain

MyBroadband tested mobile broadband coverage and speeds on the Gautrain and found that Vodacom and MTN offer the best services to subscribers.

The Gautrain is an 80-kilometre railway with a north-south component stretching from Johannesburg Park Station to Hatfield Station in Pretoria.

The Gautrain also has an eastern section connecting the main line to O.R. Tambo International Airport.

Numerous Gauteng commuters use the train as an alternative to driving. It offers many benefits, like avoiding traffic and the ability to do work while travelling.

Many people use their smartphones during their Gautrain journey, which makes good coverage and high speeds valuable.

MyBroadband tested the performance of South Africa’s five mobile networks over the entire Gautrain route.

We used two test benches with Samsung Galaxy S22 and Huawei P40 Lite 5G smartphones which performed tests every minute using a custom version of the MyBroadband Speedtest app.

Travelling up and down the entire route took 2 hours and 45 minutes, which included going to O.R. Tambo and back. It equates to a maximum of 165 successful tests.

It is impossible to perform a speed test in areas without coverage. It allows us to calculate network coverage by looking at the number of successful tests.

We also looked at the number of tests with a minimum download speed of 5Mbps and a minimum upload speed of 2Mbps.

MTN had the best overall coverage, with basic coverage of over 90% and 82% of the route having fast internet. Vodacom was second, with 82% and 71% respectively.

A surprise was that Rain outperformed Telkom and Cell on basic coverage. However, its fast coverage was lower than its bigger rivals.

Vodacom had the fastest average speed along the route and the best 5G coverage at 56%. Only 29% of the MTN tests were performed on 5G, which led to a slower average speed.

MTN had the best network for surfing the web while on the train, with Vodacom a close second.

The tables below provide an overview of the performance of Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, Cell C, and Rain on the Gautrain route.

Now read: Vodacom beats MTN on its home turf