MTN, if you were wondering, is still South Africa’s leading mobile network. That’s according to a fresh report from MyBroadband Insights, which honoured the operator with the same title back in Q1 2024, and again in Q2, ultimately awarding second place to Vodacom, leaving Rain, Telkom, and Cell C to vie for third place.
And nothing has changed since then. Aside from a couple of arbitrary numbers that prove Rain – one of SA’s newcomers in the mobile operator arena – is actually trying to bring its overall network quality up to scratch, despite the… *checks notes* fifth-place finish. Again. But more on that later.
MTN remains King
MyBroadband Insights revealed its Q3 tests earlier today, confirming MTN’s return to the number one spot and leaving Vodacom in the runner-up spot. The report gathers data from 6,989 unique devices, totalling 296,277 speed tests for mobile data across South Africa between 1 July and 30 September 2024.
To ensure realistic results, MyBroadband Insights confirmed that “the testing included data from crowdsourced users and dedicated drive tests, ensuring a balanced and accurate representation of real-world network performance.” All in all, the report covered 13,000km across South Africa.
Judging by MTN’s exemplary average LTE network speeds – putting up an average 106.22Mbps download figure and a rather impressive 32.54Mbps upload speed – it’s easy to see why it’s been crowned number one for the third month running in 2024, repping a Network Quality Score of 10, and an average latency of 27ms.
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More specifically, MTN was tipped as leading the pack in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Tshwane, and Nelson Mandela Bay – though it shared the award with Cell C in Joburg. Vodacom, which previously held the top spot in Joburg and Cape Town, managed to scrimp a win in two locations; eThekwini and Mangaung.
It’s worth mentioning that, while Vodacom places second to MTN for overall LTE performance, the company’s 5G figures remained the most impressive, leaving it in first place. Its LTE numbers weren’t all bad, either. It averaged a download speed of 94.07Mbps – a 25Mbps lead over third place. Upload speeds averaged 17.07Mbps, with its latency score sitting at 29ms.
Cell C showed a magnificent uptick compared to Q2’s results, with 68.12Mbps and 27.84Mbps average download and upload speeds respectively, smashing the operator’s 54.50Mbps score it received last quarter. Telkom and Rain continue to sit at the bottom of the barrel, managing middling download speeds of 39.72Mbps (Telkom) and 23.14Mbps (Rain).