MTN is ranked first among South Africa’s mobile operators with a median 5G download speed reaching 213.37 Mbps in Q1 2022, followed by Vodacom, a report by speed test service Ookla revealed on Wednesday.
Ookla, which owns and operates the popular speedtest.net Internet speed testing service, has published its latest Speedtest Global Index rankings for South Africa for the first quarter of 2022, said median upload speed suffered a nearly 40% decrease, going from 46.05 Mbps to 27.32 Mbps.
“When we examined the State of 5G Worldwide in 2021, we concluded that it’s common to see new mobile access technologies slow down as adoption scales, particularly early on in the tech cycle and as more users are logging on to existing 5G networks,” says Sylwia Kechiche, Currently Principal Industry Analyst, Enterprise at Ookla.
“As such, the downward tendency in MTN’s performance is not surprising at all. Vodacom, on the contrary, almost doubled its median 5G download speed from 69.93 Mbps to 132.11Mbps.”
Despite the fact that the 5G spectrum auction was completed in March 2022, Vodacom and MTN launched 5G services beforehand using emergency, temporary spectrum allocated during the COVID-19 pandemic. The regulator released spectrum in April 2020 to help operators alleviate some of the challenges they faced in responding to the high demand for data during COVID-19.
In May 2020, Vodacom launched the first 5G network across Africa, in partnership with Nokia in the 3.5 GHz band. At the time of launch, the network was available in three cities — Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Cape Town — with a total of 190 5G sites. MTN followed in June 2020, using spectrum across 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, and 3500 MHz bands. In its latest report, MTN reported that in 2021, it had over 1,000 5G sites across several spectrum bands with plans to significantly scale up with 3.5GHz spectrum.
5G Availability
5G Availability, which describes the percent of users on 5G-capable devices that spend the majority of their time on 5G, continues its upward trajectory across South Africa, from just 0.9% in Q1 2021 to 5.6% in Q1 2022. MTN had shown a stronger improvement to its 5G Availability in the Q1 2021 to Q1 2022 period than its rival, growing from 1.0% to 9.7%.
Since the award of temporary spectrum in 2020, MTN has intensified its investment to increase network coverage, improve speeds, and enhance the overall customer experience.
The operator has also invested in an expansion drive into rural and peri-urban areas and a major 5G rollout, reaching 15% of South Africa’s population at the end of 2021.
MTN is also planning to extend its 5G coverage to 25% of the population by the end of 2022, and 60% by 2025. As part of MTN’s “Modernization of Network South Africa” (MONZA) project, MTN has been allocating a budget to extend network reach into rural communities, support 5G expansion, and restore vandalized infrastructure: R624 million ($38.7m) for Eastern Cape, R749 million ($46.5m) for Western Cape, R820 million ($50.9m) in Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
Also read: MTN Targets 25% 5G Coverage Across SA In 2022
Vodacom’s 5G Availability had grown from 1.4% in Q1 2021 to 6.4% in Q1 2022. Vodacom reported in its FY 2022 results (for year ended March 2022) that in South Africa, capital expenditure was directed at improving capacity and resilience of the network and increasing 5G roll-out. As of March 2022, the operator’s 4G network covered 97.9% of the population, and it had also extended 5G sites to 624.
“This investment drive is paying off,” says Kechiche.
According to ICASA’s report, 5G population coverage reached 7.5% in 2021, an increase from a mere 0.7% in 2020.
“However, there is a disparity between urban and rural population coverage. 5G was present across all of the urban provinces, with Kwazulu-Natal in the lead with 20% 5G population penetration, while only three regions (Free State, Gauteng, and Western Cape) reported 1-2% population coverage in rural areas,” notes Kechiche.
“Having invested into spectrum and network roll-out, the operators look for ways to monetize 5G.”
For example, MTN has partnered with Australia’s Emerge Gaming to allow people to play cloud games on their Huawei P40 Pro phone using MTN’s 5G network.
“This is all in order to attract more consumers, especially video games’ enthusiasts. MTN also partnered with Huawei South Africa, Miniandante Mining, and Minetec Smart Mining to transform old mining processes using 5G,” explains Kechiche.
