JOHANNESBURG – Vodacom has again been named the fastest local mobile operator in the country.
A report released today by OpenSignal, a mobile analytic company, named Vodacom – the biggest telecoms company in terms of subscribers – as “South Africa’s speed king”, saying it had topped its speed awards in the 4G download and upload, 3G download and the overall download speeds categories.
The report comes after the global leader in internet testing, data and analysis, Ookla, in July also said that Vodacom was South Africa’s fastest 4G network. Vodacom was also given the title of Fastest Network in ATIO’s All Technology second quarter results for 2018. ATIO is an independent drive testing organisation in South Africa.
In the previous OpenSignal report released in March, Vodacom was held to a draw with rival MTN in the 4G download and overall speed categories.
“Vodacom has now firmly established itself as the dominant South African mobile operator in our metrics,” said the OpenSignal report.
Latency measures the response time of a network, and lower latency scores mean web pages begin loading quicker and real-time communications apps and online games have less lag.
“Vodacom passed the 30 milliseconds threshold for the first time in our measurements, with a 4G latency score a full 4ms quicker than its closest rival, MTN,” said the report.
The report said MTN took the honours for the 4G availability award, with a score of 78%, extending its lead over Vodacom to over 6 percentage points.
OpenSignal uses its app to gauge the experience of consumers on mobile networks quarterly. It collected over 430 million data points from 39 707 consumers between May and July across South Africa. It compared the 3G and 4G experience of Vodacom, MTN, Telkom and Cell C across South Africa’s biggest cities.
Arthur Goldstuck, managing director at World Wide Worx and editor-in-chief of Gadget, said the experiences of users went beyond just downloads.
“Being named fastest mobile operator gives you bragging rights, but the experience is key for consumers.”