The research shows that South Africa had an average mobile download speed of 49.19Mbps and an average upload speed of 14.15 Mbps 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 23.41 Mbps, and Rain at 15.14 Mbps.
MTN also had the best network in Tshwane, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, eThekwini, Mangaung, Nelson Mandela Bay and Ekurhuleni.
MTN’s exceptional 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, the leading provider in mobile network research, has analysed mobile networks in South Africa to compare their performance in 2022. This report shows the results of extensive drive tests and crowd sourced data to benchmark network data performance.
The MyBroadband Insights Network Quality Report uses a carefully designed methodology to accurately measure and compare the network performance of mobile operators. The data collection includes drive tests with a specialised testing vehicle and equipment, and crowd sourced data.
The report is based on results from MyBroadband’s Android speed test app, which were recorded between 1 January 2022 and 31 December 2022.
The speed test app runs connection tests to servers at NapAfrica’s internet peering points in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban to provide a vendor-neutral testing environment for download speed, upload speed and latency. These servers are connected via a 10Gbps link to NapAfrica to ensure there is ample capacity for accurate speeds of even the fastest broadband connections.
