Telecommunications giant MTN has retained its status as South Africa’s top performing network.
For the third consecutive quarter this year, MyBroadband Insights' quarterly ‘Mobile Network Quality’ report has named the JSE-listed group South Africa’s best mobile network.
The report ranks South Africa's mobile networks on a network quality score, which considers download speed, upload speed and latency.
Based on 314 751 speed tests which were performed by 11 440 MyBroadband Android Speed Test App users across South Africa between July 1 and September 30, MTN achieved a network quality score of ten – the highest value obtainable when comparing the relative performance of networks – in the third quarter.
This is an improvement on the 9.78 achieved in the second quarter.
MTN had secured a ranking of ten in the fourth quarter of 2018 and a ranking of ten in the first quarter of 2019.
Meanwhile, Vodacom achieved a network quality score of 8.72 in the third quarter, slightly up on the 8.24 it scored in the second quarter of this year.
Telkom scored 6.23, Rain 5.88 and Cell C 5.58 during the third quarter, compared with the preceding quarter’s scores of 6.16, 6.09 and 5.35, respectively.
South Africa had an average mobile download speed of 24.68 Mb/s and an average upload speed of 9.03 Mb/s.
MTN had the highest average download speed at 35.31 Mb/s, followed by Vodacom on 31.19 Mb/s, Telkom on 22.42 Mb/s, Cell C on 17.18 Mb/s and Rain on 16.71 Mb/s.
“MTN was a clear winner in Cape Town, Durban and Tshwane, while Vodacom and MTN shared the spoils in Johannesburg,” says MyBroadband Insights director Marius Hollenbach.
“Rain had the worst network in Johannesburg and Pretoria and Cell C was the worst network in Durban and Cape Town,” he concludes.