Crazy price hikes for people using major fibre network in South Africa

One of South Africa’s largest fibre network operators (FNOs) is dropping its three most affordable lines and force-upgrading customers to a faster package, resulting in substantial price hikes for many of its customers.

Impeccable sources at two major Internet service providers (ISPs) recently notified MyBroadband of the adjustments coming on Zoom Fibre’s fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network from June 2025.

FNOs typically communicate their wholesale price hikes to partner ISPs a few weeks before they are implemented.

The ISPs which resell these lines to end-users can then determine whether they need to adjust

They explained that the FNO was discontinuing its 15Mbps, 20Mbps, and 30Mbps lines, with the new entry-level option being a 50Mbps line.

As it stands, the cheapest lines available from Zoom Fibre start from roughly R200 to R300.

Due to the wholesale price change, ISPs will be forced to increase their prices substantially to avoid incurring losses on the 50Mbps package.

For customers with the slowest 15Mbps line from one major ISP, a hike of R450 will be required, working out to an increase of more than 200%.

Those on the 30Mbps package will be paying R250 more per month on the 50Mbps product.

Even this more modest price hike works out to nearly 80% on one ISP, with just a 67% speed upgrade.

The source called the hikes “outrageously large” and pointed out that the vast majority of Zoom Fibre’s customers across all ISPs were likely using one of the three entry-level lines.

MyBroadband asked Zoom Fibre for feedback on the price adjustments but it did not provide a response by the time of publication.

The company is the seventh-largest FTTH provider in South Africa, with 191,636 homes passed and 65,100 connected as of June 2024.

Its fibre pricing is currently highly competitive, particularly when it comes to entry-level products.

In multiple analyses of the most affordable fibre packages priced under R500 per month, Zoom Fibre’s products featured prominently.

Its 15/15Mbps offering was launched in November 2023 and is the most affordable FTTH package available outside of specialised lower-income offerings like Vuma Key.

It is priced at R229 from Cool Ideas, R249 from Webafrica, and R267 from Afrihost.

The 20/20Mbps and 30/30Mbps lines are also among the best-value fibre packages under R500.

Other networks also hiking prices in 2025

Several other major FNOs will also implement wholesale price hikes in the coming months — including Vumatel, Openserve, Octotel, and Herotel.

Frogfoot also increased its prices in February 2025, following an announcement in December last year.

However, Frogfoot and the FNOs which have confirmed their plans to ISPs have not implemented increases anywhere close to Zoom Fibre’s.

One smaller FNO, Balwin Fibre, is making a major upgrade to its entry-level package.

However, it is only implementing a marginal price hike with a substantial 650% speed increase.

Below is a summary of when FNOs implemented or plan to implement their price adjustments