Most affordable 1Gbps home fibre packages in South Africa

South African residents looking to get the fastest fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) connection available in the country can get an asymmetrical 1Gbps package for as little as R1,049 per month or a symmetrical 1Gbps line for R1,219.

While some may see such high speeds as overkill, many use cases exist for these connections. They allow simultaneous 4K streams without leading to speed reductions, so other household members can continue to work and entertain themselves without interruption.

It also provides significant benefits for gamers. With many modern games carrying large file sizes, new games are downloaded rapidly on a 1Gbps connection.

For reference, a 1Gbps connection can download up to 125 megabytes (MB) of data from the Internet per second.

Assuming you have the correct category ethernet cable and an SSD with fast data writing speeds, downloading a 100GB title on a 1Gbps connection would take under 13 and a half minutes.

Such a connection also provides enough bandwidth to support more than 66 simultaneous 4K Netflix streams.

While this would be an absurd number of streams for a single household, watching one or two simultaneous 4K streams will leave plenty of bandwidth available for other household users.

Prices for 1Gbps FTTH packages have decreased drastically since the technology’s introduction in South Africa.

Vumatel’s XDSL Uncapped product was one of the first FTTH lines available in South Africa, and in December 2015, it cost R4,699 per month.

Fast forward to today, and there are numerous options available to South African households under R2,000 per month, with some providers offering packages for as little as R1,049 per month.

MyBroadband compared symmetrical and symmetrical 1Gbps FTTH packages available from prominent Internet service providers (ISPs), Afrihost, Cool Ideas, RSAWeb, and Webafrica, regarding speeds and pricing.

Our price comparison between the most affordable symmetrical and asymmetrical FTTH packages in South Africa is provided below.

Symmetrical 1Gbps FTTH shootout

Webafrica offers the three most affordable symmetrical 1Gbps fibre packages of the four ISPs compared, with its customers able to get a 1Gbps on Comtel’s network for R1,219 per month.

Those with coverage from Link Layer’s network can expect to pay R1,299 per month for a similar package through the fibre network operator (FNO).

Webafrica also sells Frogfoot’s symmetrical 1Gbps package for R1,309 per month.

Afrihost’s symmetrical 1Gbps FTTH packages are relatively expensive in comparison, with the same Frogfoot 1Gbps/1Gbps connection coming in at R1,497 through the ISP.

Afrihost also sells a symmetrical 1Gbps FTTH on Mitsol’s network for R1,547.

The table below lists the six most affordable FTTH packages in South Africa with 1Gbps download and upload speeds.

Most affordable asymmetrical 1Gbps FTTH packages

Webafrica also dominates the asymmetrical 1Gbps package market, with seven of its products featured in our list of the ten most affordable asymmetrical 1Gbps fibre packages.

The most affordable option is Mitsol’s 1Gbps package with 100Mbps download speeds for R1,049 per month through Webafrica.

For R100 per month more, and assuming coverage, customers can get Zoom Fibre’s 1Gbps line with 500Mbps upload, also through Webafrica.

South African households with MetroFibre coverage can get a 1Gbps line with 500Mbps upload on the FNO’s network through Webafrica for R1,189 per month.

RSAWeb and Afrihost sell the same MetroFibre package for R1,245 and R1,297 per month, respectively.

Axxess sells Zoom Fibre’s 1Gbps line with 500Mbps upload for R1,295.

The 11 most affordable asymmetrical 1Gbps FTTH packages available in South Africa are provided in the table below.