Melon Mobile’s eSIM tested — 500Mbps speeds and data that never expires

MyBroadband recently tested mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Melon Mobile’s eSIM sign-up and general user experience and was very impressed with the results.

Melon Mobile is a fully online MVNO and is the brainchild of former Supersonic managing director and iConnect founder Calvin Collett.

It launched in April 2023, offering data, voice, and SMS services through MTN’s MVNO platform.

Customers can select how much of each resource they want and choose to buy their allocation on a prepaid or month-to-month basis.

A MyBroadband forum community member previously tested Melon Mobile’s regular SIM sign-up process and was mostly satisfied with the experience.

Melon Mobile recently added support for embedded SIMs — eSIM — which allows smartphone users to download and activate a digital SIM card on supported devices.

eSIM functionality is enabled through a dedicated chip, most commonly available in flagship smartphones from Apple and Samsung.

Melon Mobile’s eSIM support is not unique.

However, it is only the second of all South African mobile operators — including fully-fledged networks with their own infrastructure and MVNOs — to offer prepaid eSIMs online.

However, unlike the other MVNOs — UConnect and Me&you Mobile (which are owned by the same parent and have the same CEO) — Melon Mobile’s eSIM is free to download and activate.

We decided to see what the Melon Mobile eSIM sign-up process and user experience was like for ourselves.

To get the eSIM, users must download the Melon Mobile app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

From the app’s home page, we tapped “Get Started” and were asked if we had a Melon SIM.

After selecting “I Need One”, the app presented us with two options — a regular SIM that would be sent to us in 3–4 business days or an eSIM that we could download and activate immediately.

After ordering a free eSIM, we had to do a self-RICA.

This included allowing the app to take a video of one of our staff member’s faces and submitting a copy of their ID and proof of address.

Once this was done, the app presented a message that said, “Stay Tuned. Will start onboarding your eSIM really soon… It took longer then expected we are working to resolve it [sic]”.

About 20 minutes after placing our order, we could download the eSIM on the app, which provided a QR code to scan.

Because we needed to scan this with the smartphone we were using at the time, we opted to share the QR code via WhatsApp another device.

Melon Mobile also provided detailed instructions on how to fix a lack of data connectivity on the eSIM if required.

We followed the clear and simple steps and were up and running with the SIM about 25 minutes after starting the process.

We could then start consuming the free 100MB mobile data, 10 voice minutes, and 10 SMSs included with the first eSIM.

As we knew we would be using much more than our initial allocation, we topped up with additional data using a bank card on the Melon Mobile app.

This process was straightforward and similar to what one would experience when using any online shop that uses PayFast as its payment facilitator.

The first 2GB, 50 minutes, and 50 SMSs cost R165 and was for general use.

We also loaded 5GB of data for R230, which was intended for speed tests.

Melon Mobile’s pricing is not the best on the market, but it offers one major advantage over many of its competitors — never-expiring data.

Sublime network experience — including 500Mbps download speeds

The Melon Mobile eSIM has performed very well in the few weeks we have used it.

There was one minor irritation — we got a push notification to install the MTN app every time we enabled the SIM card after switching back from another secondary SIM.

However, the network performance was consistently excellent.

Bearing in mind that we have primarily used the eSIM within a major metro — Tshwane — we almost always had 5G connectivity.

All five speed tests we ran recorded download speeds of over 500Mbps.

The average upload speed posted was 33.72Mbps, while the average latency was 14.6ms.

All the speed tests were conducted with four out of five signal bars.

It is also important to note that all these tests were performed when there was no load-shedding.

The speeds were fast enough that we dared to stream the 2023 Rugby World Cup final between the Springboks and All Blacks through a mobile hotspot using the Melon Mobile data connection.

The stream never gave us any problems, consistently outputting high-quality visuals without buffering for nearly five hours, including the pre-match build-up and post-match presentations and celebrations.

Now read: Cell C smashes MTN and Vodacom in prepaid price comparison