Fastest mobile network on South African highways

An analysis by Analytico has revealed that MTN has the fastest mobile network on South African highways.

Many consumers are travelling long distances over the December holidays and have various internet needs along the way.

Some stream music or movies to keep passengers entertained, while others may be finishing up some remote work before they can start their holidays.

The data was collected on the MyBroadband Speed Test app between 1 July 2024 and 30 September 2024.

These speed test apps allow users to test their mobile network performance and rate their mobile provider.

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

NAPAfrica provides all network operators at its peering points a free 10Gbps connection to the MyBroadband Speed Test platform.

Analytico analysed all the speed tests performed on South Africa’s highways between 80 and 130 km/h during the third quarter of 2024.

For this report, tests from private users and those done during MyBroadband’s drive tests were considered.

The drive tests are done with normal consumer devices, and repeated tests are performed on all major networks while driving through all the big cities and main roads in South Africa.

MTN is the clear winner on South Africa’s highways, with an average download speed of 130Mbps.

Vodacom is in a close second position, with an average of 97Mbps.

Both these networks had reasonable 5G coverage, with around 20% of their highway tests being performed on 5G.

Cell C and Telkom only recorded around half the number of tests on SA highways compared to the top two networks and had slower average speeds of 68Mbps and 34Mbps, respectively.

While Telkom does support 5G, only 2% of its highway tests were performed using this technology.

Rain had the weakest highway performance, with the least recorded tests and an average download speed of only 15Mbps.