How Afrihost became South Africa’s best broadband ISP

Afrihost has won the 2024 MyBroadband Award for Best Broadband ISP, marking the second time it won this award in as many years.

This is an impressive achievement, given the strict criteria on which the award is based.

The 2024 MyBroadband Awards judged South Africa’s leading ISPs based on the variety and quality of the products and services they offer to the local market.

MyBroadband also researched customer satisfaction levels extensively, ensuring that the real-world use of each ISP’s services matched our testing.

Based on these factors, Afrihost was the clear winner.

A history of success

Winning this award is the latest in a long line of successes Afrihost has experienced throughout its journey as South Africa’s leading ISP.

The company was launched in a room in CEO Gian Visser’s mother’s home and immediately began disrupting the South African Internet market by offering massively lower prices for key services like web hosting.

At the time, the most prominent hosting companies charged at least R550 per month for basic hosting packages.

Afrihost, however, launched hosting packages priced from only R150 per month – democratising the ability to host a website.

This was combined with an excellent money-back guarantee on its hosting products.

“If you are not delighted with your website’s uptime and speed… or if you’re ever unhappy with your hosting for any reason… You will promptly be written a cheque for every cent you have paid Afrihost within the year of first signing up,” said Visser.

“That’s how confident I am that Afrihost.com does indeed provide the Best Web Hosting… Ever!”

The company continued to grow its customer-centric reputation in 2009 by launching substantially lower per-GB pricing for DSL.

This made access to fixed Internet far more affordable for South Africans and forced other ISPs to catch up to these cheaper prices.

Continued innovation

Afrihost continues to lead South Africa’s ISP and hosting industries to this day.

A prime example of this is its Uncapped Pure LTE packages, which provide fibre-like speeds to South Africans who do not have access to fibre.

Uncapped Pure LTE does not require a physical installation and is also more affordable than fibre –priced from only R299 per month.

Another example of Afrihost’s continued focus on innovation is the relaunch of its AirMobile MVNO service.

Afrihost relaunched AirMobile with a new website and app that both support direct sign-ups and eSIMs.

MyBroadband journalists found the new website and app to be extremely user-friendly, and our research showed AirMobile is the most affordable MVNO on MTN’s network for heavy data users.

Afrihost’s dedication to providing innovative, affordable, and customer-centric products sets it apart from other ISPs and makes it the deserving winner of the 2024 MyBroadband Award for Best Broadband ISP.