{"id":347793,"date":"2020-04-16T15:38:21","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T13:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=347793"},"modified":"2020-04-16T15:50:52","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T13:50:52","slug":"768gb-in-a-month-top-mobile-data-users-during-the-lockdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/347793-768gb-in-a-month-top-mobile-data-users-during-the-lockdown.html","title":{"rendered":"768GB in a month – Top mobile data users during the lockdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

South African mobile operators have seen a significant increase in data consumption since the start of the lockdown.<\/p>\n

As more people are at home, they turn to the Internet to work remotely or use online services.<\/p>\n

With fibre still limited to certain areas in South Africa, however, many people use mobile data to connect to the Internet.<\/p>\n

MyBroadband therefore asked South Africa’s mobile operators how data usage on their networks has changed during the lockdown and how they were dealing with the demand.<\/p>\n

\n

Vodacom<\/h3>\n

A Vodacom spokesperson said the top user on its mobile network consumed 768GB in March, while the top 10 users had an average usage of 570GB each.<\/p>\n

“If we look at the top three users, they are clearly serious gamers as their top five activities included downloads – accounting for nearly 40% of their traffic – followed by Xbox, Netflix, PlayStation, and BitTorrent, in that order,” Vodacom said.<\/p>\n

“That Facebook accounts for only 0.28% of their online traffic cements their hard-core gamer status. They also used 10-times more data on Netflix than on YouTube.”<\/p>\n

Vodacom has noted an increase of approximately 40% in mobile data traffic volumes during the lockdown, which was attributed to customers connecting for longer due to price cuts implemented on 1 April.<\/p>\n

The company also outlined which applications accounted for the biggest usage.<\/p>\n

“WhatsApp recorded a 50% increase in traffic to break the 2PB barrier for the first time and remains the number one app on our network from a traffic perspective.”<\/p>\n

“In second place is download traffic, which is up by 25%, followed by YouTube and Facebook, which is still the app used by most subscribers. We also saw a 72% increase in Office 365 volumes, while Netflix usage has more than doubled,” Vodacom stated.<\/p>\n

The operator said it will continue to do all it can to maintain network service quality during the lockdown, as traffic continues to increase across both its fixed and mobile networks.<\/p>\n

“We are monitoring all traffic patterns daily and prioritising key network upgrades to add capacity and maintain the quality of services delivered to our customers where required.”<\/p>\n

“Vodacom is also significantly ramping up its investment spend in the short term to help manage network congestion,” the company said.<\/p>\n

The operator also welcomed ICASA’s aim to temporarily allocate additional spectrum to network operators.<\/p>\n

“Gaining access to temporary spectrum will help us cope with the increased volume of traffic, which will ultimately ensure people working from home enjoy a seamless experience,” Vodacom said.<\/p>\n

\"Vodacom<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

MTN<\/h3>\n

MTN said it has seen an increase in data consumption for mobile customers, including those which use its network via Supersonic products.<\/p>\n

“With the lockdown, many consumers are spending much more time on their devices,” the operator said.<\/span><\/p>\n

It noted a spike in data consumption on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, Netflix, DStv, and gaming in particular.<\/p>\n

MTN said it was continuously monitoring its network capacity to ensure customers get an optimal experience and had put measures in place to deal with various scenarios.<\/p>\n

It said there has been a definite shift in geographic consumption, too, with very low usage in CBDs and higher-than-normal usage in suburbs.<\/p>\n

The operator said its records showed more customers had also opened their data sharing and hot spot features on their devices. It advised these customers to be wary of data consumed by connected devices.<\/p>\n

“We encourage customers to control their data sharing by putting a daily usage limit, as some of the connected devices may automatically update apps or the owner of the device might be using data-intensive services such as streaming and gaming \u2013 which will result in faster data depletion,” MTN explained.<\/p>\n

MTN said it was not able to provide information on individual data usage figures.<\/p>\n

\"MTN<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Cell C<\/h3>\n

Cell C said it has seen an increase of around 20% in traffic volumes during the lockdown.<\/p>\n

“The top users on our network consumed 250GB on average for the period 27-31 March 2020,” Cell C said.<\/p>\n

“In some cases, we saw a 500% increase in usage for heavy data users from prior to the lockdown.”<\/p>\n

The company added that it continuously monitors network traffic patterns and implements measures to manage traffic effectively between its own network and that of its roaming partners.<\/p>\n

\"Cell<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Telkom<\/h3>\n

Telkom said it has seen a data traffic increase of around 30% on its mobile network over a 12-day period.<\/p>\n

“The top 1% of our data subscribers have a higher-than-average increase in data utilisation, at 38% against 30% increase month-to-month. Data usage from our top 15% of subscribers has also increased,” Telkom stated.<\/p>\n

The operator said the spike was due to most people working from home, students accessing online courses and videos, healthcare professionals using online resources, and the use of social media and online entertainment.<\/p>\n

Telkom said its network was performing well and within target KPIs at a national level.<\/p>\n

“Our significant investment in modernising the network including fibre backhaul gives us comfort in the resilience of our network to support the increases in broadband during this time,” Telkom stated.<\/p>\n

It said it would be rolling out additional capacity alleviation interventions during the lockdown to address issues where users may be experiencing intermittent reduction in throughput speeds, due to high network utilisation.<\/p>\n

Telkom added that additional spectrum would greatly benefit its network performance.<\/p>\n

“Access to sub-1GHz spectrum, as is already available to other mobile network operators in South Africa, will specifically address the challenges mentioned around radio coverage and as such also radio utilisation.”<\/p>\n

\"Telkom<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Rain<\/h3>\n

Rain CEO Willem Roos said the operator had seen an increase in data traffic volumes of close to 50%.<\/p>\n

He attributed this to people working from home and making extensive use of video conferencing and streaming.<\/p>\n

Roos said Rain’s network, in particular its 5G network, was coping well with the demand.<\/p>\n

However, he said due to certain geographical shifts in population concentration, there has been congestion issues on parts of its 4G network.<\/p>\n

“There are, however, a minority of 4G towers that have become congested with the movement of demand from the city centre to the suburbs,” Roos explained.<\/p>\n

“We are working hard to address the situation. The additional spectrum that may become available soon will certainly help, and we commend government for acting fast during the crisis,” Roos stated.<\/p>\n

The operator said it will not disclose the usage of individual users.<\/p>\n

\"Rain<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Now read:\u00a0These numbers show why Vodacom and MTN desperately need more spectrum<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South African mobile operators have seen a significant increase in data consumption since the start of the lockdown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":262639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[355,63875,35,47644,42,43716,109,41],"class_list":["post-347793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-cell-c","tag-coronavirus-lockdown","tag-headline","tag-mobile-data-usage","tag-mtn","tag-rain","tag-telkom","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347793"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347793"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348077,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347793\/revisions\/348077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}