mobile speeds south africa dpi

Photo: Envato Elements

South African networks offer the best mobile experience and fastest speeds in Africa

The latest OpenSignal State of Mobile Network Experience report puts South Africa in the lead when it comes to mobile network experience.

mobile speeds south africa dpi

Photo: Envato Elements

We like to complain about the cost of data but we actually have it quite good in South Africa when it comes to mobile experience. According to Open Signal’s latest report, South Africa is in the lead.

Open Signal, a mobile analytics company, released its State of Mobile Network Experience report. The report ranks 87 of the world’s leading mobile nations across key metrics.

Once data is collected from over three billion individual measurements and thousands of smartphones worldwide, it is compared to the mobile experience of 10 African countries.

On a global scale, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore and South Korea reign supreme, while South Africa dominate the mobile-first markets in Africa.

How South Africa ranked in the State of Mobile Network Experience report

Mobile download speeds

The report indicates that we have download speeds of up to 15 Mbps (Megabits per second). Tunisia, Morocco and Kenya follow our lead with 1.34 Mbps, 11.2 Mbps and 10.1 Mbps, respectively.

 State of Mobile Network Experience report, Africa 2019
Image via OpenSignal

At the bottom of the Top 10 we find Senegal and Ghana both with 5.2 Mbps, and Algeria with 3.1 Mbps. Egypt, the Ivory Coast and Nigeria battle it out in the middle with 8.6 Mbps, 6.7 mbps and 5.4 Mbps, respectively. Open Signal states:

When compared to the 2018 report, South Africa mobile networks definitely stepped up their game. For the period of January to March 2018, we had download speeds of only 12.8 Mbps.

4G availability

Senegal and Morocco beat us in this regard, with 77.2% and 76.8% availability from January to March 2019. That said, we increased our 4G availability from 69.9% to 75.9% from 2018.

State of Mobile Network Experience report, Africa 2019
Image via OpenSignal

Algeria had the most significant progress in this regard, shooting from 44.3% in 2018 to 56.5% in 2019. Unfortunately, that wasn’t good enough to move Algeria up the list.

Following our lead is Kenya with 74.2% 4G availability, Tunisia and the Ivory Coast both with 71.8%, Egypt with 65.4%, Nigeria with 63% and Ghana with 61.2%.

Video experience on mobile

We soared to the top again video experience. According to Open Signal, a good video experience is defined by “video streamed from the Internet to a phone or tablet rendering at both low and high-level resolutions.

State of Mobile Network Experience report, Africa 2019
Image via OpenSignal

In other words, it shouldn’t be buffering when you’re streaming a video, not even in low resolution. It was only South Africa and Tunisia that received a ‘good rating’ in this category, with 58.7% and 56% respectively.

Egypt, Morocco and Kenya landed in the ‘fair category’, which is classified as speeds of between 40 and 55%; while Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and Algeria fared poorly, with scores of under 40%.

Why this is important

Analysing the data is vital when it comes to finding solutions to transform the lives of billions of people on the African continent. According to the report, “the majority of Africans have never experienced fixed-lined broadband.”

Thanks to mobile providers upping their game, millions of people on the continent now have access to mobile banking, social media and instant messaging.

Also read – Understanding mobile usage and experience in Africa