Cool Ideas Remains SA’s Fastest Internet Service Provider, Says Ookla

Cool Ideas is ranked first among South Africa’s Internet Services Providers (ISPs), reaching almost 50 Mbps symmetrical speeds, with a 48.32 Mbps median upload speed and 47.89 Mbps download speed, a report by speed test service Ookla revealed on Tuesday.

Afrihost, Webafrica, Vox Telecom, Axxess, and Rain achieved median download speeds in excess of 30 Mbps.

Ookla said operator performance in the region could be heavily impacted by the technology offered, with pure fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) provider Cool Ideas topping our rankings.

Ookla, which owns and operates the popular speedtest.net Internet speed testing service, published its latest Speedtest Global Index rankings for South Africa for the second quarter of 2022, revealing that fixed download speeds, however, are just one part of the story.

The other is coverage.

Operators such as Afrihost, MWEB, Vox Telecom, and Axxess use MTN and Vodacom’s mobile networks to offer Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) to expand their coverage in areas where there is no fibre or ADSL coverage.

Cool Ideas, which only offers fibre to homes and businesses, was acquired by Afrihost, but it continues to operate as a standalone brand. The ISP is using Vumatel’s network, which has announced that it will increase speeds for its customers. Cool Ideas customers have recently been notified that their 20/10 Mbps package will be upgraded to 50/50 Mbps for free, while the 100/100 Mbps package will double to 200/200 Mbps.

Afrihost, which finished second in our rankings, offers a range of technologies, including FTTH, fixed wireless, ADSL, VDSL, and mobile data. Afrihost and Cool Ideas merged in August 2021 after South Africa’s Competition Commission approved Afrihost buying a majority stake in Cool Ideas. Cool Ideas continues to operate its brand and business separately from Afrihost, with the same employees and management team it had before the merger. Afrihost also owns a majority stake in another South African ISP, Axxess.

Rain, formerly known as iBurst and Wireless Business Solutions (WBS), offers 4G and 5G mobile data to its customers. In November 2019, it became the first company in Africa to launch a 5G standalone network. Its 5G network currently covers 6 million households in South Africa, including those in Johannesburg, Tshwane, Cape Town, and Potchefstroom in the North West province. Rain plans to expand to new areas and towns along the Garden Route and in Gauteng and Mpumalanga.

MWEB’s technology mix includes DSL, fibre, and LTE. It is a consumer arm of Dimension Data.

HeroTel operates in more than 400 towns and 107 municipalities, with over 150,000 homes passed. It has almost 130,000 broadband subscriptions, 45% of which use fibre, with the remainder using FWA services.

CIVH, owner of Vumatel, acquired a 45% stake in Herotel in February 2022, and the company wants to increase its stake in Herotel to 100%. The goal is to expand the footprint of fibre to lower-income communities in smaller towns and cities, where Herotel already has a network.

Vox Telecom offers DSL using Telkom’s network and provides fibre using open access fibre networks. Vox Telecom acquired Frogfoot, an FNO, in July 2015.