{"id":652306,"date":"2026-06-08T15:01:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T13:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=652306"},"modified":"2026-06-08T15:35:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T13:35:19","slug":"these-are-the-isps-that-handle-the-most-internet-traffic-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/telecoms\/652306-these-are-the-isps-that-handle-the-most-internet-traffic-in-south-africa.html","title":{"rendered":"These are the ISPs that handle the most Internet traffic in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Data from Cloudflare, one of the world’s largest Internet infrastructure companies, showed that Afrihost was the largest independent Internet service provider in South Africa by traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vodacom was the network operator with the most traffic in South Africa, accounting for 12.9% of all online activity in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was followed by Telkom, which accounted for 10.1% of all Internet traffic in South Africa, with MTN in the third place at 9.9%. Afrihost was fourth with 5.7%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together, the three top companies, which are also South Africa’s three main mobile network infrastructure operators, supported 32.9% of all Internet traffic in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That meant nearly a third of all South African Internet traffic flowed through the networks of Vodacom, Telkom, and MTN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These three telecommunications firms have embarked on multi-billion-rand operations to expand and strengthen their network coverage across South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vodacom revealed that it planned to invest a further R12 billion in its South African network operations in the 2027 financial year, as reported in its annual financial results for the year ended 31 March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April, MTN said it would invest R21.8 billion in South Africa over the next three years to expand its local ICT infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said that the investment in network infrastructure and IT systems had significant multiplier effects, enabling growth across communities, industries and regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telkom revealed in June that it increased its capital expenditure by 10.4% during the year ended 31 March 2026, with investments in fibre and mobile infrastructure topping R4.3 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three telecoms’ domination of Internet traffic also reflected South Africa’s increasing mobile Internet preference, where a large portion of the population accesses the Internet exclusively via mobile phones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Cloudflare, 49.2% of all Internet traffic in South Africa is generated by mobile devices, while 50.8% was generated via desktop PC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Operator<\/th>Percentage of Internet traffic<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Vodacom<\/strong><\/td>12.9%<\/td><\/tr>
Telkom<\/strong><\/td>10.1%<\/td><\/tr>
MTN<\/strong><\/td>9.9%<\/td><\/tr>
Afrihost<\/strong><\/td>5.7%<\/td><\/tr>
NTT Data<\/strong><\/td>5.5%<\/td><\/tr>
Rain<\/strong><\/td>5.4%<\/td><\/tr>
Cell C<\/strong><\/td>4.2%<\/td><\/tr>
Vox Telecom<\/strong><\/td>3.7%<\/td><\/tr>
Huawei Cloud<\/strong><\/td>3.0%<\/td><\/tr>
Herotel<\/strong><\/td>2.8%<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

South African ISPs with the most traffic<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Afrihost was followed by NTT Data, formerly Internet Solutions and Dimension Data, which accounted for 5.5% of all traffic in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rain and Cell C came in at 5.4% and 4.2% of Internet traffic in South Africa, indicating their size compared to larger rivals at the top of the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fibre giant Vox Telecom accounted for 3.7% of all Internet traffic in the country, followed by Huawei’s cloud infrastructure business at 3%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herotel ranked 10th in Internet traffic, at 2.8%. The company announced in May that it had become the largest fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) ISP in South Africa by the number of connected homes in Q1 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It cited the most recent Africa Analysis FTTH Quarter Tracking report, which stated that Herotel had 284,850 connected FTTH homes, ahead of other major retail ISPs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The ranking includes connected homes across month-to-month and prepaid FTTH services, and excludes Herotel’s fixed wireless customer base, which stands at 52,094,” the company said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cloudflare’s data also ranked South African provinces by the percentage of Internet traffic they generate, with Gauteng far and away the leader in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s wealthiest province accounted for 61.3% of all local Internet traffic. It is also South Africa’s most populous province with the highest commercial density in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was followed by industrial and commercial hubs in the Western Cape at 22.2% and KwaZulu-Natal at 10.2%, home to the country’s largest and wealthiest cities, together with Gauteng.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together, the three provinces accounted for 93.7% of South Africa’s Internet traffic, with no other province seeing above 1.3%. The Northern Cape accounted for the least at 0.2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Top ISPs by Internet traffic in South Africa<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Provinces with the most Internet traffic according to Cloudflare<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Afrihost is the largest independent Internet service provider in South Africa by traffic, and is beaten only by the country’s three mobile network infrastructure providers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341213,"featured_media":626668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[29694,29548,26356,42,43716,26254,109,41],"class_list":["post-652306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecoms","tag-cloudflare","tag-herotel","tag-isps","tag-mtn","tag-rain","tag-telecommunications","tag-telkom","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652306"}],"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\/341213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652306"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":652508,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652306\/revisions\/652508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}