South Africa is setting the benchmark for mobile network quality across Africa, delivering a level of consistency that keeps applications running smoothly and without interruption. With robust infrastructure and reliable connectivity, South African mobile networks are enabling users to enjoy seamless performance, solidifying the country’s reputation as a leader in digital connectivity on the continent.
A new analysis by Opensignal, assessing mobile network experiences across 27 African markets, highlights South Africa as a leader in Consistent Quality, achieving a score of 58.6%, just slightly ahead of Tunisia. By contrast, more than half of the African countries analyzed scored below 30% in Consistent Quality, revealing connectivity challenges that impact stable performance for basic digital services, particularly in markets like Mali, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, and Ethiopia, where scores fall below 10%.
South Africa’s high network performance, impressive given its vast geography and population, is attributed to substantial investments in infrastructure and supportive regulations. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has facilitated technology-neutral licensing, allowing operators to repurpose spectrum from older networks to more advanced 4G and 5G services.
In 2022, ICASA’s mid-band spectrum auction raised $970 million, enabling operators to enhance 4G networks and accelerate 5G rollouts. These strategic investments and regulatory adaptability have established South Africa as a regional connectivity leader. Opensignal’s findings also show South Africa ranking sixth in the EMEA region for 5G Download Speed among large landmass markets, with an impressive score of 183.3 Mbps.
Rural-Urban Digital Divide Still Poses A Challenge In South Africa
In this latest analysis, Opensignal explores the substantial disparities in the mobile experience of our smartphone users between South Africa’s urban, suburban, and rural areas.
However, these gaps narrowed between 2022 and 2023.
We also looked at mobile network experience in South African provinces and observed significant differences between them in terms of Download Speed Experience or Time with no signal. Mobile connectivity remains essential for rural communities in South Africa, as there are still substantial proportions of mobile-only rural users in South Africa.
Opensignal used the DEGURBA methodology (Degree of Urbanization), developed by the European Commission and OECD, to classify South Africa’s territory into rural, towns and suburbs — which we refer to as suburban — and urban areas (cities), depending on the population density. We compared differences in average overall download and upload speeds between different area types and how they changed between 2022 and 2023.
In 2023, our smartphone users in South Africa see 14.4% slower Download Speed Experience and 29.2% slower Upload Speed Experience in rural areas than in urban ones. The rural-urban gap slightly narrowed compared to 2022, where average download speeds in rural areas were 15.9% slower than in the cities — but it widened for average upload speeds, going from 26.2% in 2022 to 29.2% in 2023. The disparity between suburban and urban areas of South Africa remained similar in 2022 and 2023 for Download Speed Experience — with our users in the former areas seeing 8.3% and 8.4% slower download speeds than in the cities, respectively.
