{"id":615215,"date":"2025-10-28T14:59:53","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T12:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=615215"},"modified":"2026-05-08T14:32:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T12:32:04","slug":"rain-mobile-5g-launch-delayed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/5g\/615215-rain-mobile-5g-launch-delayed.html","title":{"rendered":"Rain mobile 5G launch delayed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa’s fourth-largest cellular network provider Rain has delayed the launch of its mobile 5G service from 2025 to 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rain was the first mobile network provider to offer the latest generation of cellular connectivity, with its uncapped fixed-5G Premium plan for R999, launched in late 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the following years, it gradually expanded the offering with more affordable uncapped products with lower speeds and grew its fixed-5G network coverage to cover millions of households. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fixed-5G can only be used in a single location at a time and requires a router, which Rain provides free-to-use as long as the customer has a subscription.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this year, Rain launched a portable 5G router<\/a> for customers who wanted flexibility in the location of their uncapped service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rain’s 5G network is still not accessible on smartphones or mobile devices. Since it introduced 5G to the country, three of the country’s cellular network providers have launched mobile 5G.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vodacom became the first operator in the country to roll out a mobile 5G network in May 2020. A month thereafter, MTN followed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several MVNOs that piggyback on MTN’s network support 5G connectivity, including Afrihost Air Mobile and Melon Mobile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telkom rolled out fixed-5G services in October 2022 and, a few months later, mobile 5G connectivity. Cell C still has no 5G services, but no longer operates its own radio equipment or tower infrastructure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cell C relies on wholesale agreements with MTN and Vodacom for its radio access network capacity and has said that it is close to rolling out 5G support in partnership with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its last feedback in October 2024<\/a>, Rain told MyBroadband it planned to launch mobile 5G services sometime in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A year later, the company confirmed to MyBroadband that it had adjusted the launch timeline to 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rain explained this was because of its focus on accelerating the development and accessibility of the 5G Advanced Standalone device ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Launch plans dating back years<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rain’s 5G mobile service has been in the pipeline for many years. Its largest shareholder \u2014 African Rainbow Capital \u2014 previously said Rain would launch mobile 5G within a year from September 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, in March 2023, Rain co-founder and director Michael Jordaan told PSG Think Big that the initial focus will be a countrywide mobile 4G service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jordaan later apologised for pre-empting the launch of Rain’s mobile network in a post on X, which he subsequently deleted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rain rolled out its fully-fledged mobile 4G network in May 2023, offering support for conventional calling and SMS for the first time since its data-only network launch in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the operator initially required customers to have one of its fixed-5G packages to get a mobile 4G SIM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By linking the two products together, its mobile 4G service was less attractive to customers who already have a reliable fixed connection like fibre-to-the-home (FTTH).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Rain launched standalone mobile 4G products, its pricing was not competitive<\/a> with similar products from Vodacom, MTN, AirMobile, and Telkom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rain made a name for itself as an innovator with affordable mobile data plans, initially starting with capped 4G sold through third-party Internet service providers (ISPs) before rolling out uncapped 4G. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its fixed-5G services were the first mobile broadband products supporting uncapped data at speeds and latencies comparable to FTTH.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the bigger networks have caught up on many fronts, including by offering more affordable fixed-4G and fixed-5G products, directly and through third-party ISPs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the delay in launching mobile 5G connectivity, it has also fallen behind some smaller MVNOs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than six years after it introduced fixed-5G services in South Africa, Rain still does not offer mobile 5G connectivity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":615882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62528],"tags":[96846,81414,43716,61659],"class_list":["post-615215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5g","tag-fixed-5g-2","tag-mobile-5g","tag-rain","tag-rain-5g"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615215"}],"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=615215"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":646302,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615215\/revisions\/646302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}