This is how expensive broadband in South Africa really is

South Africa’s fixed broadband prices are lower than most African countries for every megabit of speed they provide but more expensive at the entry-level.

MyBroadband looked at two pieces of recent research comparing the prices of fixed broadband packages worldwide to see how we fared against mature economies and our continental neighbours.

The first was Cable.co.uk’s global broadband pricing league table for 2022, which ranked South Africa the 170th most affordable out of 220 countries.

The big problem with Cable.co.uk’s main league is that it is based on an average package price calculation which can include costly top-end packages available in South Africa but not elsewhere.

South Africa and several other countries among the more expensive nations have the option of 1Gbps fibre-to-the-home Internet, which is unavailable in many less-developed countries.

These packages tend to be more expensive, which can skew the averages against them, despite providing greater value on a per-megabit basis.

A more accurate reflection of costs could be determined by calculating the price per 1Mbps.

Fortunately, Cable.co.uk’s table also allows you to sort the prices on a per-megabit speed basis.

Using this metric, South Africa places 125th out of 220 countries, a significant improvement. The average cost per Mbps was $1.24.

In Africa, we ranked 12th cheapest, with 37 other countries on the continent being more expensive. Many African countries were excluded from the comparison due to insufficient fixed-line availability.

The table below summarises the average price of fixed broadband packages for every 1Mbps in 220 countries measured by Cable.co.uk. It shows the top and bottom 10, and South Africa’s position.

Another way to rank the countries with the most affordable broadband is to look at the cheapest packages available.

This gives a good indication of how big a role price can play as a barrier to entry for consumers.

In this instance, South Africa faired poorly, ranking 167th overall with an entry-level price of $36.57 (R529 at the time of the report).

The cheapest local broadband package was also more expensive than in 37 other African countries, while only 10 countries were more expensive.

However, it should be noted that several entry-level fibre packages were cheaper than R529 per month at the time of Cable.co.uk’s comparison.

Many of these — such as those on Frogfoot Air, Openserve Web Connect, and VumaReach — are only available in densely populated, low-income suburbs.

The table below compares the entry-level prices of fixed broadband in the 220 countries measured by Cable.co.uk.

Interestingly, South Africa was one of only 14 countries out of the 220 assessed where Cable.co.uk could draw data from 41 broadband packages — the maximum it would include from any country.

It was also the only country in Africa with such a high number of packages to assess.

That indicates South Africans have a wider range of packages to choose from than end-users in most other countries.

Point Topic’s Q2 2022 broadband tariff benchmark came to a very different conclusion than Cable.co.uk, despite its report being published around the same time.

It found that South Africa had the second most expensive broadband based on average cost per Mbps, putting it in league with the likes of Senegal and Bolivia.

Point Topic’s $2.84 per Mbps figure across residential broadband packages in South Africa is significantly higher than Cable.co.uk’s.

How much fibre really costs in South Africa

We calculated our own average price per Mbps for entry-level fibre packages.

The most expensive packages per Mbps are those at the entry-level, so we chose three of these from three of the biggest ISPs on the four major fibre networks.

We then calculated an average price per Mbps across 36 packages to compare with Cable.co.uk and Point Topic’s numbers.

Our average price per Mbps worked out to R11.99, which converts to around $0.72 when using the exchange rate of R16.60 between the rand and dollar at the end of July 2022, around the time the two firms had released their findings.

That would suggest that fixed broadband in South Africa is more affordable than Cable.co.uk and Point Topic have calculated.

The figure could have been even lower had we included closed-access fibre network operator Herotel, which offers some of the lowest FTTH prices in the country, and high-speed fibre packages with speeds of 500Mbps or 1Gbps.

However, it is important to note that fibre-to-the-home pricing in South Africa has come down since their research was published.

The tables below show the packages we used to calculate an average per-megabit price across South Africa’s entry-level packages from prominent providers.

Now read: Goodbye ADSL — Fibre vs copper prices in South Africa