State of Mobile Networks: South Africa (August 2017) The mobile broadband market in South Africa is still evolving, but according to OpenSignal's latest round of tests, half of the country's operators are already providing good accessibility to LTE services as well as decent speeds. Our first report on South Africa analyzes more than 289 million datapoints from 20,422 devices to examine the 3G and 4G consumer experience provided by four operators: Cell C, MTN, Telkom and Vodacom. What we found was a clear divide in our metrics between the two market leaders Vodacom and MTN and their two smaller rivals. Report Facts 289,240,043 20,422 May 1 - Jul South Measurements Test Devices 31, 2017 Africa Sample Period Report Location Highlights Vodacom led or tied in all OpenSignal MTN, Vodacom in a close race for 4G dominance metrics Despite Vodacom’s long list of wins, MTN was hot on its heels in nearly Vodacom set itself apart with a trio of wins and an equal number every metric. The two had the fastest LTE speeds in South Africa in our of top-of-the-table draws in our six metrics. Vodacom stood out tests, both averaging downloads greater than 22 Mbps. MTN and in particular in OpenSignal's 3G speed and latency categories, Vodacom were also neck and neck in our 4G availability results. Our though it faced much stiffer competition from MTN in our core users on both networks were able to latch onto their LTE signals more 4G metrics. than 70% of the time. Cell C and Telkom are far behind their rivals LTE availability in South Africa has room to grow in speed While MTN and Vodacom have just crossed over the 70% threshold in The two market leaders have a clear speed advantage: The our 4G availability metric, Cell C and Telkom are still well short of that overall speeds we measured on MTN and Vodacom were nearly benchmark. When it comes to providing a consistently accessible LTE twice as fast as the overall speeds we measured on Cell C and signal, South Africa overall ranked in the bottom third of 75 countries we Telkom. In the 4G category, we measured download speeds for examined in our recent State of LTE report. Cell C and Telkom at 13.8 Mbps and 11.6 Mbps respectively, scores that fell short of the global LTE average of 16.2 Mbps. Awards Table Download Speed: 4G Download Speed: 3G Download Speed: OverallLatency: 4G Latency: 3G Availability: 4G Cell C MTN Telkom Vodacom Test your network and contribute to our reports App Store Google Play Enjoyed our report? All our analysis is based on real measurements collected by millions of mobile network users. No simulations, no approximations: just real-world experience. Performance by Metric Availability: 4G This metric shows the proportion of time OpenSignal users have Cell C an LTE connection available to them on each operator’s network. It's a measure of how often users can access a 4G network MTN rather than a measure of geographic or population coverage. Telkom Vodacom 0 % 13 % 26 % 39 % 52 % 75 % Download Speed: 4G This metric shows the average download speed for each Cell C operator on LTE connections as measured by OpenSignal users. MTN Telkom Vodacom 0 Mbps 4 Mbps 8 Mbps 12 Mbps 16 Mbps 20 Mbps 25 Mbps Download Speed: 3G This metric shows the average download speed for each Cell C operator on 3G connections as measured by OpenSignal users. MTN Telkom Vodacom 0 Mbps 2 Mbps 4 Mbps 6 Mbps 8 Mbps 10 Mbps Download Speed: Overall This metric shows the average download speed experienced by OpenSignal users across all of an operator's 3G and 4G Cell C networks. Overall speed doesn't just factor in 3G and LTE speeds, but also the availability of each network technology. MTN Operators with lower LTE availability tend to have lower overall speeds because their customers spend more time connected to slower 3G networks. Telkom Vodacom 0 Mbps 3 Mbps 6 Mbps 9 Mbps 12 Mbps 15 Mbps Latency: 4G This metric shows the average latency for each operator on LTE Cell C connections as measured by OpenSignal users. Latency, measured in milliseconds, is the delay data experiences as it MTN makes a round trip through the network. A lower score in this metric is a sign of a more responsive network. Telkom Vodacom 0 ms 8 ms 16 ms 24 ms 32 ms 45 ms Latency: 3G This metric shows the average latency for each operator on 3G Cell C connections as measured by OpenSignal users. Latency, measured in milliseconds, is the delay data experiences as it MTN makes a round trip through the network. A lower score in this metric is a sign of a more responsive network. Telkom Vodacom 0 ms 28 ms 56 ms 84 ms 112 ms 140 ms 170 ms Analysis Mobile consumers in South Africa have four main operators to choose from, but two have broken away from the pack, providing the most consistent consumer mobile data experience in our metrics. Vodacom and MTN were the standouts in our report, Our Methodology providing not only fast data speeds but also good LTE service reach. However, South Africa overall still has some work to do if it wants to catch up to its global peers in 4G OpenSignal data is collected from consumer capabilities. As a result, future investment in spectrum and infrastructure will be key smartphones and recorded under conditions of normal usage. As opposed to drive-test data, which in the region going forward. attempts to simulate what a user might experience by using the same devices to measure network OpenSignal's State of Mobile Networks: South Africa report is the result of more than performance in a small number of locations, we take 289 million measurements collected between May 1 and July 31 of 2017 from 20,422 our measurements from millions of smartphones owned by regular people who have downloaded testers using OpenSignal and its partners' apps. We collated customer experience OpenSignal’s apps. data on both 3G and 4G networks for the four nationwide mobile network operators in South Africa: Cell C, MTN, Telkom and the Vodafone Group's Vodacom. Those measurements are taken wherever users happen to be, whether indoors or out, in a city or in Two distinct tiers of speed the countryside, representing a mobile data service the way users experience it. For more information on how we collect and analyze our data see our When it comes to 4G network speeds, there is a clear separation between the four methodology page. operators. MTN and Vodacom were essentially tied for first place in our LTE download rankings, providing average 4G connections of 22.6 and 22.1 Mbps For this particular report, 289,240,043 datapoints respectively. Both operators' scores were well above the global 4G download average were collected from 20,422 users during the period: of 16.2 Mbps found in our most recent worldwide State of LTE report. May 1 - Jul 31, 2017. Though MTN and Vodacom well exceeded our global benchmarks for 4G speed, the All data has been collected from users of the same couldn't be said for Cell C and Telkom. Our users averaged 4G downloads of OpenSignal mobile app for Android or iOS. 14.2 Mbps on Cell C and 11.8 Mbps on Telkom during the three-month period of OpenSignal measurement. In our LTE report, South Africa as a whole averaged 19.3- For every metric we've calculated statistical Mbps 4G download speeds across all operator networks, which landed it in the confidence intervals and plotted them on all of the graphs. When confidence intervals overlap for a bottom half of the 75 countries examined. certain metric, our measured results are too close to declare a winner in a particular category. In those The different capabilities of the four operators' networks are the likely reasons for the cases, we show a statistical draw. For this reason, speed differences we recorded between the top and bottom ranks of providers. some metrics have multiple operator winners. Vodacom, for example, has launched LTE across three frequency bands and is experimenting with an LTE-Advanced technique called carrier aggregation to boost its connections speeds. Competitors are using fewer frequencies or have less bandwidth devoted to 4G services, although other operators are expanding LTE into two frequency bands. Indeed, Vodacom’s aggressive technological approach may be the reason it won at least a share of all six of OpenSignal’s awards in this report. Vodacom is also currently showing the most forward momentum when it comes to adopting new LTE techniques. It's now offering voice over LTE services as well as using more sophisticated smart antenna technologies (4x4 MIMO) and more complex modulation schemes (256 QAM). While we saw stark contrasts between the South African operators in 4G speed, all four provided a solid 3G experience in our tests. All of them exceeded the global 3G download speed average of 4.4 Mbps. Even in this area, however, Cell C and Telkom lagged behind market leaders MTN and Vodacom. OpenSignal measurements show a download speed range of 4.2 to 4.7 Mbps on the former pair's 3G networks compared to a range of 5.6 to 6.5 Mbps on the latter duo's infrastructure. Network latency, which is a measure of a network's reaction speed, was also similar across the quartet of operators, at least on 4G. OpenSignal data showed lag times of 41 milliseconds or less for each.