100Mbps home fibre face-off

Webafrica offers the best prices on uncapped 100Mbps fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) packages among eight major Internet service providers (ISPs) on the five biggest fibre networks in South Africa.

That is according to MyBroadband’s analysis of the latest prices for packages with at least 100Mbps download speeds on Frogfoot, Herotel, MetroFibre, Openserve, and Vumatel’s networks.

Combined, these fibre network operators (FNOs) have over 4.5 million homes passed with their infrastructure, of which more than 1.5 million are connected to their networks.

Three networks — Frogfoot, MetroFibre, and Openserve — adjusted speeds or prices on their plans in the past few months, resulting in ISPs also implementing changes.

Vumatel is set to increase its prices from May 2024.

Several ISPs have also increased the prices of some of their FTTH packages as part of their annual revisions in 2024.

MyBroadband compared the latest prices to assist price-conscious consumers in deciding which ISP they should use.

It should be emphasised that those who value customer service should also consult reports like Analytico’s top-rated ISPs before choosing their provider, as this can provide a good indication of what to expect if you have network or billing issues.

Webafrica and Axxess dominate on open-access networks

In this comparison, we primarily focused on ISPs that had prices for all the FNOs readily available on their websites.

We used products with at least 100Mbps download speeds as this provides ample capacity for a typical mid-sized household to consume lots of online content without buffering or slowdowns.

On the four open-access networks, the most affordable package with at least 100Mbps speed was available on Frogfoot for R699 per month through Webafrica.

At that price, customers get a 120Mbps download speed and 60Mbps upload speed.

Webafrica was also the cheapest option on Metrofibre’s network, with a symmetric 250/250Mbps package as its most affordable choice offering speeds of at least 100Mbps.

On the networks where Webafrica was not the most affordable — Openserve and Vumatel — it was the second-cheapest option.

Axxess also generally had good pricing, ranking cheapest on Vumatel and second and third most affordable on Metrofibre and Frogfoot, respectively.

It was only on Openserve where it was on the more expensive end of the pricing spectrum, although not the most expensive.

The second most affordable 100Mbps FTTH package overall was not available on any of the open-access networks.

This belonged to Herotel, on its own network, for R749 per month.

Despite customers in its coverage area not being able to use other ISPs, Herotel is South Africa’s third-biggest FNO, so it cannot be ignored.

Its coverage areas are primarily in smaller cities and large towns that are not served by the major open-access FNOs.

The table below compares the prices of FTTH plans with at least 100Mbps download speeds from the five biggest FNOs in South Africa.

Unless indicated otherwise, prices are for month-to-month packages, although penalty fees may apply for new installations cancelled within six or 12 months.

It should be noted that the prices are not always directly comparable across the FNOs as they can have different upload speeds.