MTN beats Vodacom on the Gautrain

MyBroadband tested mobile data performance across the entire Gautrain rail system and found MTN to have the best performance.

The Gautrain is a high-speed commuter rail system connecting Hatfield in Pretoria to Park Station in Johannesburg. It also features a convenient route to the OR Tambo International Airport.

First envisaged in 1997, according to former Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa, the system was one of the province’s flagship economic-development projects.

On 14 February 2000, Shilowa announced in his State of the Province address that Gauteng intended to develop a high-speed rail link.

Nicknamed the Shilowa Express, the project aimed to connect Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Johannesburg International Airport (now OR Tambo).

A feasibility study was conducted that year and completed in 2001, followed by an environmental impact assessment. Gautrain received its environmental approval in April 2004.

Procurement for the project’s construction began in February 2002, and the Bombela Concession Company was appointed the preferred bidder in July 2005.

Bombela was appointed under a public-private partnership to design, build, partly finance, operate, and maintain the system.

Construction officially started on 28 September 2006, when the Gauteng government and Bombela signed the concession agreement, and Shilowa ceremonially broke ground.

The construction programme was deliberately divided so that the airport link could open for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

The first passenger service left Sandton at 05:24 on 8 June 2010 for OR Tambo International Airport. It was just three days before the World Cup kicked off.

Gautrain’s main North-South route, between Rosebank and Hatfield, opened on 2 August 2011, bringing Pretoria into the network.

On 7 June 2012, the final section between Rosebank and Park Station opened, expanding the Gautrain to its present-day extent.

The opening of the last leg had been mainly delayed by excessive water ingress in the tunnel between Rosebank and Park.

Gautrain mobile network speeds tested

Gautrain is popular among commuters who want to avoid heavy freeway traffic, allowing them to use their travel time for remote work or leisure instead of driving.

This requires a good mobile internet connection. MyBroadband assessed the network performance of South Africa’s five major mobile operators across the entire Gautrain network.

The testing was performed with the new MyBroadband Speed Test app on five identical Samsung Galaxy S24 devices.

The MyBroadband Speed Test apps provide users with their download speed, upload speed, latency, and signal strength.

MyBroadband’s speed test servers are hosted in Teraco’s vendor-neutral data centres to ensure a neutral testing environment.

NAPAfrica provides all network operators at its peering points a free 10Gbps connection to the MyBroadband Speed Test platform.

Tests were performed on each device every minute along the route to determine which network offered the best performance.

MTN had the best overall performance, with an average download speed of 136Mbps. Vodacom had the second-best download speed at 127Mbps, followed closely by Cell C and Telkom.

Cell C and MTN had the best upload speeds of 37Mbps and 36Mbps, respectively, while Telkom had the best average latency of only 20ms.

Rain offered the lowest jitter at only 6ms, but achieved poor speeds overall compared to the other networks.

All of South Africa’s big four networks offered excellent speeds on the Gautrain. For those who need good upload speeds, MTN, Vodacom, and Cell C will likely offer the best experience.

Gautrain mobile speed test results

The results of our test are summarised in the table below, which shows the average download, upload, latency, and jitter achieved.

NetworkDownload (Mbps)Upload (Mbps)Latency (ms)Jitter (ms)MTN135.9736.4026.8310.72Vodacom126.8423.6926.087.87Cell C119.8737.0027.6310.57Telkom116.1213.8320.326.90Rain24.6910.3722.425.59