SA's fastest and slowest mobile networks

MTN has maintained its position as South Africa's best mobile network in 2021 when it comes to speed, according to the 2021 Mobile Network Quality Report from MyBroadband Insights.

The report shows that MTN has the fastest download and upload speeds of any network in South Africa based on 1.35 million results from MyBroadband's Speed Test App, which were recorded between January 1 and December 31, 2021.

MTN was also ranked the best in the 2020 Mobile Network Quality Report.

The research shows that in 2021, South Africa's average mobile network performance included an average mobile download speed of 40.86 Mbit/s and an average upload speed of 13.82 Mbit/s.

Source: 2021 Mobile Network Quality Report from MyBroadband Insights

MTN had the fastest average download speed at 64.23 Mbit/s, followed by Vodacom (35.05 Mbit/s), Telkom SA (27.23 Mbit/s), Cell C (19.26 Mbit/s) and data-only network Rain trailing at 13.07 Mbit/s.

All the networks were able to improve their average download speeds from 2020 with MTN jumping from 52.84 Mbit/s in 2020 to 64.23 Mbit/s in 2021 and Vodacom increasing from 29.39 Mbit/s to 35.05 Mbit/s.

When it comes to upload speed MTN's average of 22.09 Mbit/s is double that of the next in line, Vodacom, with an average upload speed of 10.68 Mbit/s. Rain is next fastest at 9.86 Mbit/s followed by 8.73 Mbit/s for Cell C. The slowest in 2021 was Telkom SA at 7.00 Mbit/s.

Source: 2021 Mobile Network Quality Report from MyBroadband Insights

MTN also had the fastest network in most major South African cities including Johannesburg, Tshwane, eThekwini, Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Gqeberha, Polokwane, George and Kimberley. The only exception was East London, where Vodacom came out on top.

The authors said that MTN's exceptional performance results from outspending its rivals on infrastructure investment over the past five years. Vodacom has, however, started to outspend MTN in 2021 and looks set to regain the top spot in the network quality rankings, the report noted.

A device analysis revealed that the peak speed of 751 Mbit/s was achieved on a Huawei P40 Pro 5G, followed by 732 Mbit/s on a Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G and 695 Mbit/s on a Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G.

*Top image source: mohamed_hassan on Pixabay.

— The Staff, Connecting Africa