{"id":591698,"date":"2025-04-19T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=591698"},"modified":"2025-04-19T10:12:21","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T08:12:21","slug":"why-uncapped-mobile-data-breaks-south-african-networks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/591698-why-uncapped-mobile-data-breaks-south-african-networks.html","title":{"rendered":"Why uncapped mobile data breaks South African networks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa’s two biggest mobile networks prefer to offer full-speed capped products over throttled uncapped mobile data plans due to local user preferences and potential capacity overloads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In developed markets like Europe, the UK, and the US, cellular networks often sell uncapped mobile data plans at reasonable prices for the average consumer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To prevent straining their networks, the operators throttle speeds on these packages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, Vodafone UK’s Unlimited plan supports uncapped data with speeds of up to 10Mbps for \u00a326 per month, working out to R649 at the time of publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vodacom in South Africa does not offer uncapped mobile data plans anywhere near that price. The closest prepaid data bundle in terms of price is a 40GB bundle for R712. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While a customer’s data allocation is finite, speeds are not capped, meaning you will get the best-effort speed at a particular place and time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have a 5G device, you could easily get speeds of more than 100Mbps. However, many South African smartphone users don’t need that much speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Streaming at full HD resolution on Netflix or YouTube requires a download speed of less than 5Mbps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s mobile networks generally don’t throttle speeds for regular mobile usage, only on fixed-LTE or fixed-5G applications that can be used at one location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Provisioning cellular network capacity in a way that is optimal for as many subscribers as possible is a complex exercise, especially in South Africa’s limited spectrum environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If a network does not get the balance between allocations, speed, and price right, it could spell trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Too high a price, and the network may be under-utilised. Too low and the capacity gets overloaded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Complicating matters further is the fact that the vast majority of South Africans access the Internet through a mobile connection, whereas the highest data demand in overseas markets tends to be on fixed networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rain’s uncapped trouble<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A good example of how getting things wrong can cause major problems is when Rain’s network performance tanked in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deterioration came within a few weeks of rolling out its 10Mbps uncapped mobile data product for R479.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite limiting streaming quality and\u00a0throttling torrents, Rain’s network quality plummeted<\/a> due to overwhelming demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rain ended up discontinuing all its uncapped 4G products for new customers with the launch of its RainOne offering in May 2023. Its only uncapped product is its fixed-5G line-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MyBroadband asked South Africa’s other mobile network operators why they were not taking a similar approach as those in other markets, where speed limits rather than data caps prevent network overloading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Vodacom spokesperson told MyBroadband it has no products with uncapped data that can be used in a smartphone or other mobile device, neither does it plan to roll out such packages in the immediate future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We believe in providing customers with an excellent network experience, hence the manner in which we have structured our capped tariffs,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spokesperson said that the massive increase in data volumes from uncapped mobile plans would have a significant impact on its network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our aim is to offer cost-effective, high-capacity plans that balance performance with fair pricing,” they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Value important \u2014 but speed critical <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

MTN South Africa does have a fully uncapped mobile data plan for non-fixed use. However, it is pricey \u2014 at R2,469 per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The operator acknowledged that uncapped data with speed throttling was becoming common in certain international markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company explained that high network investment requirements and usage patterns in South Africa played a significant role in shaping local data plans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“These local conditions influence how mobile networks structure their offerings and the balance between speed, capacity, and pricing,” MTN said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MTN said although value for money was important to its customers, network speed remained a critical element of the user experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has become especially important as applications and services increasingly require faster and more reliable connections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our focus is to provide a balance of value, performance, and flexibility to suit a wide range of customer needs,” MTN said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MTN seemed to be more open to adapting its products in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“MTN is consistently reviewing and enhancing its products to ensure we remain competitive and responsive to what our customers want,” it stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“As customer needs continue to evolve, so will our offerings. Customers can look forward to even more value in the near future.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it did not provide feedback to our query, Telkom does offer uncapped mobile data products for use in mobile devices through its own retail business and several third-party ISPs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Priced from R299 per month through Axxess, this plan limits speeds to 10Mbps for the first 500GB consumption in a month before dropping to 4Mbps for the next 50GB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thereafter, speeds are limited to 2Mbps for the rest of the month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Telkom’s network is less extensive than Vodacom and MTN’s, so there are likely to be more instances where connectivity is a challenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa’s two biggest mobile networks prefer to offer full-speed capped products over throttled uncapped mobile data plans due to local user preferences and potential overloading of their capacity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":480115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[42,99617,43716,109,45390,41],"class_list":["post-591698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-mtn","tag-network-overloading","tag-rain","tag-telkom","tag-uncapped-mobile-data","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591698"}],"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=591698"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":591782,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591698\/revisions\/591782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}