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MTN is now the leader in our Video Experience measurements scoring 72.0 points, which means the operator falls within the Very Good category (65-75). Vodacom also moved into the Very Good category at 70.7, while Telkom has narrowed the gap between the Video Experience seen by its users and those on Cell C from 5.3 points to 0.6 points since our last report.
MTN recorded an impressive 6.1 Mbps improvement in Download Speed Experience, which pushed the operator into first place — having previously tied with Vodacom — with its users observing average speeds of 24.7 Mbps. Vodacom exceeded the 20 Mbps threshold reaching a 22.7 Download Speed Experience, while Telkom and Cell C still lagged behind at 11.7 Mbps and 11.5 Mbps, respectively — showing little improvement compared to our previous report.
MTN cemented its lead in 4G Availability with a 88.4% score. Telkom and Vodacom exceeded 80% 4G Availability as well, having improved respectively by 6.4 and 3.9 percentage points since our previous report. Surprisingly, Cell C’s users observed a drop of 1.5 percentage points in 4G Availability, settling down at 76.8%.
Vodacom won our Voice App Experience award scoring 75.0 points, making it the only operator to achieve the Acceptable category (74-80). MTN, Telkom and Cell C landed in the Poor category (66-74), which means many of our users on their networks were dissatisfied, and experienced distortions, clicking sounds or silence during the call when using over-the-top (OTT) voice services on apps like WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger.
A first glance at our awards table would suggest that things haven’t changed much in South Africa compared to six months ago, with MTN and Vodacom winning some mobile experience awards each, and sharing the lead in the others.
However, a closer look reveals that MTN is slowly turning the tide in its favor. MTN has now won our Video Experience and Download Speed Experience awards — which the operator tied with Vodacom in August 2019 — and has now tied Upload Speed Experience and Latency Experience — which MTN was losing to Vodacom six months ago. MTN has also retained the lead in 4G Availability. On the other hand, Vodacom won our two new metrics — Voice App Experience and 4G Coverage Experience — which we launched in the months following our last South Africa report.
In the past six months MTN has made significant improvements across the board, taking the lead in three of our seven award metrics. Vodacom also showed improvements, but the operator has conceded ground to MTN across all of the metrics that are present in both this report and our previous one, with the distance between the two operators changing in the favor of MTN. Telkom and Cell C are still lagging behind, but showed improvements across all of these metrics, save for Cell C in 4G Availability, which saw the operator’s score decreasing by 1.5 percentage points.
| Mobile Experience Awards South Africa | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
March 2020,
South Africa Report
|
T
Telkom
|
C
Cell C
|
M
MTN
|
V
Vodacom
|
Video Experience
| ||||
Voice App Experience
| ||||
Download Speed Experience
| ||||
Upload Speed Experience
| ||||
Latency Experience
| ||||
4G Availability
| ||||
4G Coverage Experience
| ||||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
March 2020,
South Africa
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
M
MTN
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
V
Vodacom
|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
M
MTN
|
|
4G Availability
|
M
MTN
|
|
4G Coverage Experience
|
V
Vodacom
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
|
March 2020, South Africa
|
|---|---|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
M
MTN
V
Vodacom
|
|
Latency Experience
|
M
MTN
V
Vodacom
|
|
Video Experience
Additional Metrics |
T
Telkom
|
C
Cell C
|
M
MTN
|
V
Vodacom
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||||
|
4G Video Experience
| 65.3 (± 0.65) | 67.7 (± 1.03) | 77.9 (± 0.34) | 76.0 (± 0.29) |
|
3G Video Experience
| 41.2 (± 1.48) | 47.6 (± 1.84) | 53.4 (± 1.49) | 54.1 (± 1.02) |
| 4G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
T
Telkom
|
65 (± 0.65) |
|
C
Cell C
|
68 (± 1.03) |
|
M
MTN
|
78 (± 0.34) |
|
V
Vodacom
|
76 (± 0.29) |
| 3G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
T
Telkom
|
41 (± 1.48) |
|
C
Cell C
|
48 (± 1.84) |
|
M
MTN
|
53 (± 1.49) |
|
V
Vodacom
|
54 (± 1.02) |
|
Voice App Experience
Additional Metrics |
T
Telkom
|
C
Cell C
|
M
MTN
|
V
Vodacom
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||||
|
4G Voice App Experience
| 73.4 (± 0.38) | 72.9 (± 0.53) | 74.8 (± 0.34) | 77.2 (± 0.19) |
|
3G Voice App Experience
| 61.8 (± 0.94) | 62.7 (± 1.04) | 64.1 (± 0.81) | 68.3 (± 0.46) |
| 4G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
T
Telkom
|
73 (± 0.38) |
|
C
Cell C
|
73 (± 0.53) |
|
M
MTN
|
75 (± 0.34) |
|
V
Vodacom
|
77 (± 0.19) |
| 3G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
T
Telkom
|
62 (± 0.94) |
|
C
Cell C
|
63 (± 1.04) |
|
M
MTN
|
64 (± 0.81) |
|
V
Vodacom
|
68 (± 0.46) |
|
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
T
Telkom
|
C
Cell C
|
M
MTN
|
V
Vodacom
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | ||||
|
4G Download Speed
| 13.8 (± 0.22) | 14.6 (± 0.34) | 30.6 (± 0.42) | 28.1 (± 0.28) |
|
3G Download Speed
| 5.2 (± 0.14) | 6.6 (± 0.20) | 6.3 (± 0.15) | 5.9 (± 0.10) |
| 4G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
T
Telkom
|
14 (± 0.22) |
|
C
Cell C
|
15 (± 0.34) |
|
M
MTN
|
31 (± 0.42) |
|
V
Vodacom
|
28 (± 0.28) |
| 3G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
T
Telkom
|
5 (± 0.14) |
|
C
Cell C
|
7 (± 0.20) |
|
M
MTN
|
6 (± 0.15) |
|
V
Vodacom
|
6 (± 0.10) |
|
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
T
Telkom
|
C
Cell C
|
M
MTN
|
V
Vodacom
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | ||||
|
4G Upload Speed
| 4.0 (± 0.07) | 5.8 (± 0.16) | 8.8 (± 0.14) | 8.5 (± 0.10) |
|
3G Upload Speed
| 1.1 (± 0.04) | 1.4 (± 0.06) | 1.2 (± 0.05) | 1.5 (± 0.04) |
| 4G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
T
Telkom
|
4 (± 0.07) |
|
C
Cell C
|
6 (± 0.16) |
|
M
MTN
|
9 (± 0.14) |
|
V
Vodacom
|
8 (± 0.10) |
| 3G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
T
Telkom
|
1 (± 0.04) |
|
C
Cell C
|
1 (± 0.06) |
|
M
MTN
|
1 (± 0.05) |
|
V
Vodacom
|
1 (± 0.04) |
|
Latency Experience
Additional Metrics |
T
Telkom
|
C
Cell C
|
M
MTN
|
V
Vodacom
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in ms | ||||
|
4G Latency
| 36.5 (± 0.31) | 40.2 (± 0.45) | 29.6 (± 0.17) | 31.8 (± 0.13) |
|
3G Latency
| 66.4 (± 1.14) | 60.9 (± 1.26) | 56.7 (± 0.87) | 48.8 (± 0.53) |
| 4G Latency | in ms |
|
T
Telkom
|
36 (± 0.31) |
|
C
Cell C
|
40 (± 0.45) |
|
M
MTN
|
30 (± 0.17) |
|
V
Vodacom
|
32 (± 0.13) |
| 3G Latency | in ms |
|
T
Telkom
|
66 (± 1.14) |
|
C
Cell C
|
61 (± 1.26) |
|
M
MTN
|
57 (± 0.87) |
|
V
Vodacom
|
49 (± 0.53) |
Collecting billions of individual measurements daily from over 100 million devices globally, Opensignal independently analyzes mobile user experience on every major network operator around the globe.
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