South Africa has witnessed an improvement in its global broadband rating with better services as its fixed broadband has doubled in just three years, says a new research from Ookla, the company behind the popular speedtest.net website, shows. And Johannesburg residents are enjoying the fastest average performance.

Ookla, considered one of the most credible sources of analytics data on fixed and mobile Internet performance worldwide and in South Africa, said that despite the improvements, the country ranks 95th worldwide, with a median download speed of 35.9Mbit/s and a median upload speed of 29.6Mbit/s.

However, the good news is that South Africa is climbing the global rankings and, in the past four years, has “come a long way in terms of fixed network performance”, Ookla said.

In July 2019, South Africa ranked 112th, with fixed median download and upload speeds of just under 10Mbit/s and 5.6Mbit/s, respectively.

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Significant investments in fibre infrastructure and aggressive competition between leading market players, including Vumatel, Openserve and MetroFibre Networx, are having a big positive impact on the quality of fixed broadband connections in South Africa.

“South Africa still has a long way to go to catch up with other Brics countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China. Telecommunications regulator Icasa could consider setting a minimum broadband speed to stimulate market adoption outside of urban areas, which are currently underserved,” Ookla said in a statement about its latest findings.

“With only 10% of households connected to [fixed] broadband, there is substantial room for growth, and operators are looking to extend fibre beyond affluent areas. South Africa is home to a complex fibre market with alternative Internet service providers competing for market share using open fibre networks deployed by Telkom’s wholesale division, Openserve, and alternative fibre network operators such as Vumatel,” it said.

In its latest report, Ooka also revealed that: Cool Ideas had the fastest median Internet among fibre ISPs, with a median upload speed of 48.3Mbit/s and 47.9Mbit/s on the download. However, its market lead “could be soon challenged as many operators are already offering speeds in excess of 30Mbit/s”. Afrihost, Webafrica, Vox Telecom, Axxess and Rain (fixed-wireless) all achieved median download speeds of more than 30Mbit/s.

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Gauteng had the best median fixed broadband download speeds of 38.5Mbit/s and 27.9Mbit/s upload speeds. Johannesburg was the fastest of five South African cities analysed by Ookla.

Fixed broadband adoption is still relatively low, especially in rural areas. There are 17.4 million households in South Africa, of which just 10% had fixed broadband in September 2021. However, this is growing quickly – from 8.3% in 2010.

“There are multiple drivers behind the growth of fibre in South Africa, ranging from Telkom retiring its legacy infrastructure, consumer demand for faster speeds and the growing consumption of bandwidth-hungry content, from video streaming services to cloud-based enterprise applications. As such, the fixed incumbent, Telkom, is no longer the default wholesale infrastructure provider, which was the case with DSL,” Ookla said.

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“The increasing competition in South Africa gave birth to a very competitive and vibrant fibre wholesale market. In fact, South Africa is experiencing a boom in fibre network operators, with over 30 FNOs deploying their own infrastructure and sharing it with other operators on an open-access basis.”

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry