MyBroadband Insights has released its annual Mobile Network Quality Report, which shows that MTN has the best mobile network in South Africa.
The report for the 2022 calendar year further revealed that MTN reigned supreme in all major South African metro areas.
The report is based on 1.36 million results from MyBroadband’s Android Speed Test App, which were recorded between 1 January 2022 and 31 December 2022.
The research shows that South Africa had an average mobile download speed of 49.19Mbps and an average upload speed of 14.15Mbps last year.
MTN had the highest average download speed at 68.84Mbps, followed by Vodacom at 48.58Mbps, Telkom at 28.54Mbps, Cell C at 23.41Mbps, and Rain at 15.14Mbps.
MTN also had the best network in Tshwane, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, eThekwini, Mangaung, Nelson Mandela Bay, and Ekurhuleni.
MTN’s performance results from outspending its rivals on infrastructure investment over the past five years.
Vodacom has, however, started to spend more than MTN over the last two years, which started to show in the latest results.
There was a sharp increase in 5G tests in 2022 as operators expanded their 5G footprint to more locations across South Africa.
The speed test results also revealed that extreme load-shedding towards the end of 2022 caused unstable connections among all operators.
Mobile operators are now investing in improved batteries and backup generators to mitigate the effects of prolonged power outages.
| MyBroadband Insights 2022 Mobile Network Quality report — overall performance | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Network operator | Download (Mbps) | Upload (Mbps) | Latency (ms) |
| MTN | 68.84 | 19.77 | 44 |
| Vodacom | 48.58 | 11.62 | 38 |
| Telkom | 28.54 | 9.95 | 38 |
| Cell C | 23.41 | 9.02 | 47 |
| rain | 15.14 | 10.33 | 39 |
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