Affordable fibre showdown — from R549 for 50Mbps

South African households looking for an Internet connection with download speeds of around 50Mbps will find plenty of packages ranging from around R550 to R800 per month.

Nearly 5 million households in the country are covered by the fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks of the nine biggest fibre network operators (FNOs).

Because they rely on fixed-line infrastructure, FTTH packages typically provide the fastest and most consistent performance of any home broadband product.

The networks that support FTTH connectivity are constructed and maintained by FNOs like Vumatel, Openserve, and MetroFibre.

FNOs sell lines and capacity on their networks to fibre Internet service providers (ISPs), who resell this to end-users.

One noteworthy exception to this is Herotel, which operates a closed-access network.

Instead of selling to third-party ISPs, it sells directly to customers.

ISPs primarily differentiate themselves through their brands, customer service, and cost models.

With the structuring of the latter, they might offer cheaper Internet on one FNO and more expensive packages on another.

We compared ISP prices for packages with 40Mbps and 50Mbps download speeds — the new entry-level options for many networks — on the six biggest FNOs in the country.

Webafrica dominates in pricing — with a cancel catch

As was the case in our previous comparison, Webafrica was the cheapest on four of the five open-access networks.

On the network where it was the second most affordable — Openserve — it was beaten by just R2.

However, be aware that Webafrica charges a flat R999 cancellation fee regardless of how long you use their service.

Cancellation fees for other ISPs typically only apply if you cancel within a certain period from activation — often six or 12 months.

The cheapest 50Mbps package on the open-access networks was on Vumatel, with Webafrica charging R639 per month.

The most affordable 40Mbps FTTH product was priced at R547 on the Openserve network through Afrihost.

For those who prefer high upload speeds, the cheapest symmetric package on an open-access network was priced at R639 per month on Webafrica.

However, the cheapest 50Mbps package overall was with Herotel on its own network — at R549 per month.

In addition to being the most affordable, it also offers a symmetric upload speed.

The table below shows the FTTH prices from five major ISPs in South Africa across the country’s five most extensive open-access fibre networks.

Pricing includes installation and a free-to-use router. Packages are month-to-month, but cancellation fees might apply if terminating within 6 or 12 months of activation. Webafrica charges a flat cancellation fee, as mentioned previously.

Customers considering another ISP can use the average prices for each network to see if they are getting a relatively good price from another provider.

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