Testing by MyBroadband revealed that Vodacom achieved faster speeds than MTN at MTN’s headquarters in Fairland, Johannesburg.
MyBroadband performed Internet speed tests at the Gauteng headquarters of MTN, Vodacom, Telkom, Cell C, and Rain.
We used three smartphone rigs consisting of five identical phones for the tests — one for each mobile network.
Each network’s download speed, upload speed, and latency were tested using a Samsung Galaxy S22, Huawei P40 Lite 5G, and Oppo Reno 5.
We performed 15 tests on each device per location. Therefore, we conducted 45 tests per network per location.
We expected Vodacom and MTN to outperform Telkom, Cell C and Rain because they have rolled out 5G mobile data networks.
We further anticipated that mobile networks with 5G deployments would perform best at their headquarters as it is usually the first place they roll out new technologies.
The results were in line with our expectations, with a big surprise — Vodacom outperformed MTN at MTN’s head office in Fairlands.
A further surprise was that Cell C also outperformed MTN at this location.
Vodacom had the fastest download speed at their headquarters, as we expected, reaching a peak speed of 534 Mbps.
MTN recorded the highest speed at Telkom’s headquarters in Highveld Techno Park in Centurion, followed by Vodacom and Telkom.
Cell C recorded the highest speed at their head office in Woodmead even though it does not have a 5G network.
MTN achieved the highest speeds at Rain’s headquarters on Main Street in Bryanston, with a peak download speed of 435.17 Mbps.
While Rain has a 5G network, this is only available as fixed wireless access and not through a mobile device.
The tables below show the performance of the five mobile networks at the headquarters of the operators.
Vodacom headquarters in Midrand
| Vodacom Headquarters | ||||||
| Network | Fastest Download | Fastest Upload | Lowest Latency | Average Download | Average Upload | Average Latency |
| MTN | 261.18 | 60.52 | 20 | 162.13 | 35.97 | 47.60 |
| Vodacom | 534.27 | 58.80 | 20 | 245.83 | 37.17 | 26.10 |
| Telkom | 40.20 | 26.16 | 25 | 19.77 | 17.96 | 37.00 |
| Cell C | 49.15 | 18.65 | 20 | 13.43 | 7.82 | 28.94 |
| Rain | 75.88 | 31.51 | 20 | 39.09 | 10.08 | 26.77 |
MTN headquarters in Fairland
| MTN Headquarters | ||||||
| Network | Fastest Download | Fastest Upload | Lowest Latency | Average Download | Average Upload | Average Latency |
| MTN | 40.37 | 19.74 | 26 | 19.24 | 12.10 | 41.64 |
| Vodacom | 214.20 | 23.82 | 13 | 80.34 | 10.98 | 27.55 |
| Telkom | 33.48 | 20.06 | 21 | 26.37 | 8.83 | 34.12 |
| Cell C | 70.61 | 19.42 | 21 | 41.47 | 13.91 | 28.82 |
| Rain | 25.00 | 18.48 | 21 | 8.48 | 3.16 | 27.36 |
Telkom headquarters in Centurion
| Telkom Headquarters | ||||||
| Network | Fastest Download | Fastest Upload | Lowest Latency | Average Download | Average Upload | Average Latency |
| MTN | 565.53 | 99.96 | 13 | 359.33 | 81.05 | 26.60 |
| Vodacom | 356.83 | 55.72 | 16 | 82.94 | 21.40 | 37.40 |
| Telkom | 101.31 | 24.55 | 21 | 51.16 | 13.38 | 31.50 |
| Cell C | 83.82 | 24.22 | 22 | 45.66 | 21.66 | 27.31 |
| Rain | 27.87 | 30.15 | 23 | 13.07 | 15.81 | 37.85 |
Cell C headquarters in Woodmead
| Cell C Headquarters | ||||||
| Network | Fastest Download | Fastest Upload | Lowest Latency | Average Download | Average Upload | Average Latency |
| MTN | 81.45 | 60.80 | 24 | 55.35 | 53.65 | 38.75 |
| Vodacom | 13.99 | 10.43 | 23 | 7.22 | 5.19 | 116.29 |
| Telkom | 25.45 | 30.81 | 24 | 15.74 | 24.23 | 34.13 |
| Cell C | 89.01 | 23.63 | 20 | 68.11 | 19.22 | 24.84 |
| Rain | 10.12 | 17.34 | 20 | 6.67 | 7.03 | 29.64 |
Rain headquarters in Bryanston
| Rain Headquarters | ||||||
| Network | Fastest Download | Fastest Upload | Lowest Latency | Average Download | Average Upload | Average Latency |
| MTN | 435.17 | 61.68 | 16 | 307.07 | 44.77 | 25.83 |
| Vodacom | 140.37 | 35.89 | 24 | 67.79 | 26.99 | 41.40 |
| Telkom | 39.74 | 10.33 | 21 | 27.37 | 6.19 | 52.39 |
| Cell C | 12.48 | 2.12 | 30 | 6.23 | 1.18 | 151.54 |
| Rain | 116.89 | 34.99 | 20 | 80.03 | 14.51 | 23.47 |