The barrier to entry for household fibre Internet has dropped significantly in recent years, with South Africans able to get a fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) package for R229 per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MyBroadband looked for the most affordable FTTH packages available in the country, regardless of whether they are prepaid or month-to-month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Generally, fibre network operators (FNOs) target the country’s lower-income earners with their prepaid products. However, this trend is shifting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In January 2024, Frogfoot chief product officer David Coleman told MyBroadband that the FNO was considering more prepaid FTTH products for higher-income areas in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said that just because residents in these areas generally earn high incomes doesn’t mean they can’t benefit from affordable fibre connectivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The need for on-demand services is not limited to lower Living Standards Measure areas,” said Coleman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Living Standards Measure (LSM) is a market research tool providing a more granular socio-economic class metric. The measurement ranges from 1 to 10, and higher numbers indicate greater access to wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There is a need for a product that delivers stable and accessible connectivity that’s priced to fit the needs of the market and designed to overcome the challenges of local infrastructure,” said Coleman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“One of the core needs of the LSM 8\u201310 market is for connectivity to be cost-effective. They want the reliability and security of fibre but without the hefty price tag.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Coleman, focussing on offering accessible price points across all South African suburbs will ensure that all residents have on-demand access to fibre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moreover, they don’t need to spend thousands per month; instead, they pay for what they need when they need it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prepaid fibre connectivity has various use cases. Holidaymakers can use a prepaid service to stay connected when away from home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Students and people living in retirement communities can now gain access to affordable connectivity that fits within their individual budgets,” added Coleman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Coleman mentioned, prepaid fibre packages enable customers to activate their service when they need it, saving them money when they don’t require fibre connectivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those with month-to-month fibre packages can cancel their plan for months during which they don’t require connectivity. However, they must do so preemptively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Subscribers will also have to consider the terms and conditions of their ISP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Usually if you cancel within the first 12 months of an FTTH service, the ISP will claw back installation fees and the cost of any Wi-Fi router they provided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some ISPs charge a cancellation fee even after the first 12 months have passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Interestingly, the cheapest fibre prepaid and month-to-month packages available to South African households are priced the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zoom Fibre’s symmetrical 15Mbps package through Webafrica is the most affordable contract package available at R249 per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Webafrica offers a similarly priced prepaid service in the form of Vuma Reach’s entry-level prepaid package at a slightly slower speed of 10Mbps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another notable plan is Link Layer’s symmetrical 30Mbps line, which costs R279 per month through Webafrica. It offers the highest speeds in the R200 to R300 price bracket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For reference, the most affordable service with a higher speed than the Link Layer package is Openserve Web Connect’s asymmetrical 40Mbps package through Webafrica, which costs R389 per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We found 27 FTTH packages available for less than R450 per month, with Frogfoot Air’s 50Mbps package with 10Mbps upload being the fastest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Webafrica sells 30 days of 50Mbps Frogfoot Air connectivity for R429, while Afrihost charges R447 for the package.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of the cheapest fibre-to-the-home packages available to South African consumers are compared in the table below.<\/p>\n\n\n Homeowners in South Africa can choose from 27 fibre-to-the-home packages that cost less than R450 per month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":456635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28470],"tags":[1669,1765,20153,74004,3398,2508],"class_list":["post-558043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fibre","tag-afrihost","tag-axxess","tag-fibre-to-the-home-ftth","tag-prepaid-fibre","tag-rsaweb","tag-webafrica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558043"}],"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\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558043"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":558468,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558043\/revisions\/558468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\n
\n Internet service provider<\/strong><\/td>\n Fibre network operator<\/strong><\/td>\n Download speed<\/strong><\/td>\n Upload speed<\/strong><\/td>\n Price<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n\n \n Webafrica<\/strong><\/td>\n Zoom Fibre<\/td>\n 15Mbps<\/td>\n 15Mbps<\/td>\n R249<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Webafrica<\/strong><\/td>\n Vuma Reach<\/td>\n 10Mbps<\/td>\n 10Mbps<\/td>\n R249<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Afrihost<\/strong><\/td>\n Link Layer<\/td>\n 10Mbps<\/td>\n 10Mbps<\/td>\n R257<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Afrihost<\/strong><\/td>\n Zoom Fibre<\/td>\n 15Mbps<\/td>\n 15Mbps<\/td>\n R267<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Webafrica<\/strong><\/td>\n Link Layer<\/td>\n 30Mbps<\/td>\n 30Mbps<\/td>\n R279<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Axxess<\/strong><\/td>\n Frogfoot Air<\/td>\n 10Mbps<\/td>\n 1Mbps<\/td>\n R295<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Afrihost<\/strong><\/td>\n Frogfoot Air<\/td>\n 10Mbps<\/td>\n 1Mbps<\/td>\n R297<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Axxess<\/strong><\/td>\n Openserve Web Connect<\/td>\n 20Mbps<\/td>\n 10Mbps<\/td>\n R299<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Webafrica<\/strong><\/td>\n Frogfoot Air<\/td>\n 10Mbps<\/td>\n 1Mbps<\/td>\n R329<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Afrihost<\/strong><\/td>\n Openserve Web Connect<\/td>\n 20Mbps<\/td>\n 10Mbps<\/td>\n R329<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Webafrica<\/strong><\/td>\n Openserve Web Connect<\/td>\n 20Mbps<\/td>\n 10Mbps<\/td>\n R339<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Axxess<\/strong><\/td>\n Zoom Fibre<\/td>\n 15Mbps<\/td>\n 15Mbps<\/td>\n R345<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Axxess<\/strong><\/td>\n Openserve Web Connect<\/td>\n 40Mbps<\/td>\n 20Mbps<\/td>\n R369<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Webafrica<\/strong><\/td>\n Openserve Web Connect<\/td>\n 40Mbps<\/td>\n 20Mbps<\/td>\n R389<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Afrihost<\/strong><\/td>\n Openserve Web Connect<\/td>\n 40Mbps<\/td>\n 20Mbps<\/td>\n R389<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Axxess<\/strong><\/td>\n Frogfoot Air<\/td>\n 20Mbps<\/td>\n 2Mbps<\/td>\n R395<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n RSAWeb<\/strong><\/td>\n Vuma Reach<\/td>\n 20Mbps<\/td>\n 10Mbps<\/td>\n R397<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Webafrica<\/strong><\/td>\n Vuma Reach<\/td>\n 20Mbps<\/td>\n 10Mbps<\/td>\n R399<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Afrihost<\/strong><\/td>\n Vuma Reach<\/td>\n 20Mbps<\/td>\n 10Mbps<\/td>\n R399<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Webafrica<\/strong><\/td>\n Frogfoot Air<\/td>\n 50Mbps<\/td>\n 10Mbps<\/td>\n R429<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Herotel<\/strong><\/td>\n Herotel<\/td>\n 20Mbps<\/td>\n 5Mbps<\/td>\n R429\u00a0<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n MetroConnect<\/strong><\/td>\n Metrofibre<\/td>\n 20Mbps<\/td>\n 20Mbps<\/td>\n R440<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Afrihost<\/strong><\/td>\n Frogfoot Air<\/td>\n 50Mbps<\/td>\n 10Mbps<\/td>\n R447<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Webafrica<\/strong><\/td>\n Vumatel<\/td>\n 25Mbps<\/td>\n 25Mbps<\/td>\n R449<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n RSAWeb<\/strong><\/td>\n Octotel Prepaid<\/td>\n 20Mbps<\/td>\n 10Mbps<\/td>\n R449<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Afrihost<\/strong><\/td>\n Vumatel<\/td>\n 25Mbps<\/td>\n 25Mbps<\/td>\n R449<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Axxess<\/strong><\/td>\n Vumatel<\/td>\n 25Mbps<\/td>\n 25Mbps<\/td>\n R449<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"