Vodacom beats MTN in top South African malls

MyBroadband tested mobile network speeds inside several popular malls in Johannesburg, and Vodacom consistently delivered solid speeds, while its rivals offered more varied performance.

We conducted the tests using a harness of five Samsung Galaxy S24 devices, with a SIM from each of South Africa’s major mobile network operators.

All testing was performed with the new MyBroadband Speed Test app, running tests at 1-minute intervals on each network.

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.

The devices were allowed to connect to the best available network bearer technology to compare coverage and speed inside the malls tested.

Tests were conducted at Mall of Africa, Sandton City, Rosebank Mall, and Hyde Park Corner. Telkom had the fastest download speed in Rosebank Mall, but offered relatively slow upload speeds.

Vodacom delivered the best download speeds in the other three malls and was less than 1 Mbps slower than Telkom in Rosebank Mall, where it placed second.

MTN achieved solid download speeds across the board, but was never the best performer in any given mall.

Cell C performed admirably, taking second place at Mall of Africa, beating MTN, and still providing usable speeds at the other malls.

Rain’s 4G mobile data service consistently came last and was usually much slower than its next nearest competitor.

The results of MyBroadband’s tests at each of the four malls we visited are summarised in separate tables below.

Mall of Africa

Mobile users inside Mall of Africa can expect decent and consistent speeds on Vodacom, MTN, and Cell C, but may struggle if they are on Telkom or Rain.

Telkom achieved the lowest latency at only 18ms, but all the other networks still offered good, usable latency.

NetworkDownload (Mbps)Upload (Mbps)Latency (ms)Vodacom70.3415.8428.17Cell C52.5314.0931.40MTN36.9111.8225.19Telkom13.816.4217.89Rain11.863.2422.73

Sandton City

Sandton City shoppers can expect speeds above 100Mbps on Vodacom and Telkom, with consistent upload speeds above 10Mbps on any network except Rain.

MTN and Cell C recorded solid average download speeds of 53Mbps and 35Mbps, respectively, while also achieving solid upload speeds and latency.

NetworkDownload (Mbps)Upload (Mbps)Latency (ms)Vodacom195.6725.3534.76Telkom124.6414.0421.83MTN52.8317.0829.38Cell C34.9311.0233.85Rain11.834.5040.77

Rosebank Mall

Mobile networks struggled to get to the 100Mbps mark inside Rosebank Mall, but Telkom, Vodacom and MTN still achieved very good speeds.

MTN and Cell C recorded significantly higher upload speeds inside the mall than their competitors, while the average latency across all networks was good.

NetworkDownload (Mbps)Upload (Mbps)Latency (ms)Telkom98.366.3623.73Vodacom97.9015.2730.17MTN94.5630.6125.92Cell C78.7927.9827.39Rain24.596.2327.08

Hyde Park Corner

Shoppers at Hyde Park Corner can expect a very good experience if they are using Vodacom, MTN or Cell C, with Vodacom achieving average download speeds above 280Mbps.

Cell C offered extremely good upload speed inside the mall, approaching 100Mbps. MTN and Cell C also achieved excellent download speeds of 164Mbps and 156Mbps, respectively.

NetworkDownload (Mbps)Upload (Mbps)Latency (ms)Vodacom280.3849.0828.11MTN163.5856.5715.11Cell C156.2899.1424.07Telkom36.3315.6221.69Rain27.673.6722.13