Telecommunications group MTN has retained the crown of best mobile network in South Africa with a network quality score of 9.58 in the third quarter of 2021.
The MyBroadband Mobile Network Quality Report shows that Vodacom secured a network quality score of 6.25, followed by Telkom with 5.18, Cell C with 4.09, and Rain with 3.42.
The third-quarter report reveals that South Africa had an average mobile download speed of 40.40 Mb/s and an average upload speed of 13.66 Mb/s.
Comparatively, MTN had the highest average download speed at 68.79 Mb/s, followed by Vodacom at 39.37 Mb/s, Telkom at 29.24 Mb/s, Cell C at 19.88 Mb/s and Rain at 10.86 Mb/s.
MyBroadband Insights attributes MTN’s reign to its outspending of its rivals on infrastructure investment over the past five years.
“MTN’s R50-billion network investment helped it extend coverage, improve network quality, and increase speeds,” the report said.
The average download speed in South Africa increased by more than 10 Mb/s since the start of 2020, owing to increased network investment and the temporary spectrum issued to mobile operators during the lockdown early in 2020, which enabled mobile networks to increase their network capacity and improve their average speeds.
The third quarter report is based on 306 303 speed tests performed by 10 530 MyBroadband Speed Test App users across South Africa between July 1 and September 30.