MTN dominates 4G speeds in South Africa

MTN offers the fastest 4G network speeds in South Africa, followed by Vodacom, Telkom, Cell C, and Rain, new research by Analytico has revealed.

Analytico collects and analyses a range of data to provide South African IT and telecommunication companies with market research, network intelligence, and marketing insights.

Its latest research is based on speed test data collected through the MyBroadband Speed Test Android app between 1 January and 1 June 2023. Over 300,000 speed tests were completed during the period.

MyBroadband’s speed test servers are hosted in Teraco’s vendor-neutral data centres, ensuring a neutral testing environment.

Analytico’s research revealed that MTN has the best 4G network, with an average download speed of 62.99Mbps.

Vodacom was second with an average speed of 49.51Mbps, followed by Telkom with 20.92Mbps, Cell C with 17.98Mbps, and Rain with 13.90Mbps.

Average upload speeds show a similar trend, with MTN’s being the highest at 19.53Mbps — 7.07Mbps higher than second-place Vodacom.

MyBroadband asked each mobile operator for an update on their 4G coverage in South Africa.

MTN South Africa’s chief sustainability and corporate affairs officer, Jacqui O’Sullivan, said the company plans to expand its coverage beyond 97%

“MTN SA has 97% 4G coverage,” she said.

“Our new site build programme is broken up into areas where we need more capacity and areas where we want to extend our coverage beyond the 97%, this includes rural, peri-urban and metropolitans.”

Vodacom spokesperson Byron Kennedy told MyBroadband that its 4G network has 98.58% population coverage and has made significant investments in its network over the past four years.

“We have invested heavily into our network, in recent years in particular, to enhance customer experience, including customers with 4G-enabled devices,” said Kennedy.

“For instance, we spent over R4 billion in the past four years alone on enhancing network resilience to keep customers connected through higher stages and sustained levels of load shedding.”

Rain didn’t provide a percentage figure for its 4G population network and instead said it has national coverage.

“With the launch of our new 4G mobile network, we have expanded our network coverage significantly and we are proud to say that our 4G mobile network has national coverage, similar to that of any other 4G national network operator,” it said.

MyBroadband also asked Cell C and Telkom about their 4G coverage, but they had not answered our query by publication.

MTN dominates 4G speeds in South Africa

Analytico’s research revealed that MTN offers the fastest 4G speeds in South Africa. However, it performed second-worst regarding average latency.

It achieved the best average download and upload speeds at 62.99Mbps and 19.53Mbps, respectively, but its latency averaged 45.10 milliseconds.

In comparison, Vodacom, Telkom, and Rain each have lower average download and upload speeds, but their average latencies are significantly lower than MTN’s.

Vodacom achieved average download and upload speeds of 49.51Mbps and 12.46Mbps, respectively. MyBroadband speed tests recorded an average latency of 39.06 milliseconds on Vodacom’s 4G network.

Telkom, Cell C, and Rain attained significantly lower average download speeds than MTN and Vodacom.

Telkom’s 4G network recorded average download and upload speeds of 20.92Mbps and 9.61Mbps, respectively.

Cell C and Rain performed relatively poorly, achieving average download speeds of 17.98Mbps and 13.90Mbps, respectively.

The following table provides an overview of the average network speeds achieved by each of South Africa’s mobile network operators.

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