Best value-for-money fibre network battle

Frogfoot and MetroFibre offer the best value for money on fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) packages from South Africa’s four biggest open-access fibre network operators (FNOs).

That is according to an analysis of the average price-per-megabit of download speeds on 36 packages offered by three of the country’s most popular fibre ISPs.

Performing a like-for-like comparison of FNO prices is challenging because they not only offer different assortments of download and upload speeds, but also various combinations of the two.

For example, while MetroFibre’s two most affordable packages offer 25Mbps and 75Mbps download speeds, Frogfoot’s entry-level plans have a download speed of 60Mbps.

Frogfoot’s other packages offer download speeds of 80Mbps, 120Mbps, 240Mbps, 400Mbps, and 1Gpbs, while MetroFibre has 250Mbps, 500Mbps, and 1Gbps.

Certain speeds might also only be available with specific ISPs who negotiated for these packages with a particular FNO.

Vumatel and Openserve’s entry-level packages start at 50Mbps on most ISPs.

However, the latter also offers a 40Mbps download speed with select ISPs, including Telkom retail.

On Afrihost, the most affordable Vumatel FTTH package has a 50Mbps download speed. On RSAWeb, customers can still get a 25/25Mbps plan.

Dividing the packages by segment

To deal with these differences, we calculated the price-per-megabit of download speeds for packages from each operator on Afrihost, Telkom, and RSAWeb.

We divided the packages into three main categories — entry-level, mid-tier, and premium.

The entry-level packages we used were the most affordable available from each operator on three of the most popular fibre ISPs.

We found that although the average price of Frogfoot’s entry-level FTTH packages was the most expensive at R662, it had the cheapest price per megabit of download speed of R11.03.

That was likely due to its slowest download speed being 60Mbps, compared to the 25Mbps, 40Mbps, and 50Mbps of MetroFibre, Openserve, and Vumatel.

The polar opposite was MetroFibre’s entry-level packages, which offered the cheapest average price of R520.33, but the highest price-per-megabit of download speed.

For the mid-tier plans, we used the most affordable packages from each FNO with download speeds between 200Mbps and 300Mbps.

In this segment, Metrofibre’s 250Mbps packages offered the best value for money, with an effective download speed price-per-megabit of R3.59.

Once again, this made sense when considering its download speed in this segment was higher than most of its rivals.

However, it also had the cheapest average package price of all the FNOs by a significant margin despite offering the faster speed.

Vumatel was the most expensive in the mid-tier, with an average price-per-megabit of R5.49.

For the premium option, we included the most affordable packages with the highest download speeds available from each ISP and FNO.

MetroFibre again came out on top, with an average price-per-megabit of R1.53. It also had the cheapest average package price.

At R2.79 per megabit, Openserve was the most expensive in the premium segment. This made sense, considering its highest available download speed is half that of its rivals.

The table below compares the average price-per-megabit of download speed offered by the four biggest open-access FNOs in South Africa.