MTN crushes Vodacom in Johannesburg

MyBroadband’s latest mobile voice network quality testing revealed that MTN has the best voice network in Johannesburg, followed by Vodacom, Telkom, and Cell C.

These results form part of an extensive network quality testing project to determine the performance of Vodacom, MTN, Cell C, and Telkom’s mobile networks across South Africa.

MyBroadband has partnered with Analytico, Afristay, and Keysight distributor Coral-i for the extensive, country-wide project.

This project uses Keysight’s network testing platform, Nemo, to test a range of variables using high-end Samsung devices.

MyBroadband worked with antenna and wireless communications specialist Poynting to design its test benches and testing vehicle.

The testing started in Johannesburg, where we tested all major areas and used main routes to accurately reflect the mobile voice quality in the metro.

Johannesburg’s voice network quality testing results revealed that MTN reigned supreme in nearly all testing parameters.

MTN had the best voice quality overall, with a score of 4.32/5. Cell C ranked second with a score of 4.08, even though none of the calls on its network used VoLTE.

Vodacom and Telkom had reasonable audio quality, with scores of 3.63 and 3.61, respectively. However, we hoped for better with both networks supporting VoLTE.

Vodacom and MTN had the fastest average call setup time of under 1.4s, likely due to their good VoLTE support.

We experienced problems with Telkom VoLTE. Their technical support teams eventually solved some of the issues, but calls still used older fallback technologies in Johannesburg in many areas.

Cell C experienced significantly longer call setup times which can partly be explained by the lack of VoLTE support.

MTN was the only network with a 100% call setup success rate. Vodacom and Telkom had low failure rates, and Cell C was the only network where the failure rate exceeded 1%.

MTN also achieved the lowest call drop rate at 1.05%, followed by Telkom at 1.07%, Vodacom at 1.39%, and Cell C at 7.42%.

Cell C’s high call drop rate could frustrate users in Johannesburg. It is not clear why the mobile operator drops so many calls.

Voice network quality in Johannesburg

MyBroadband used the globally recognised European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) specification to rank the mobile operators’ voice network quality.

MTN reigned supreme at 92.9%, followed by Vodacom at 84.1%, Telkom at 75.1%, and Cell C at 51.7%.

The table below provides an overview of the voice network quality test results for South Africa’s four major mobile networks in Johannesburg.

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