Vodacom posted the best results among South Africa’s big mobile operators in two network tests by MyBroadband Insights. The operator came out on top for both 5G speed and voice call quality.
According to MyBroadband, the Vodacom 5G network averaged a download speed of 260.12 Mbps in the third quarter of 2026. Its average upload speed was 26.02 Mbps, and latency was 24 ms.
The 5G study ran from 1 July 2026 to 30 September 2026. It used 296,405 separate speed tests taken on thousands of devices across the country.
Results also differed from city to city. Vodacom’s average 5G download speed reached 300 Mbps in Nelson Mandela Bay. In Cape Town, the average was 234 Mbps.
Tech Insider, which reported the results, said smaller metros often post faster averages because fewer devices share the same radio capacity. It said this may help explain why Nelson Mandela Bay beat the larger Cape Town market.
The separate voice quality study ran from 2 May 2026 to 15 June 2026. This six-week period was chosen to cover weekdays, weekends and different levels of network traffic.
In that study, Vodacom took an average of 1.70 seconds to connect a call. Its call setup success ratio was 96.68%, which means fewer than four in 100 calls failed to connect.
The operator had a dropped call ratio of 1.68%. This figure shows how many connected calls cut out before the people on the line had finished talking.
Vodacom also scored 4.44 out of 5 on the Mean Opinion Score scale, which rates how clear speech sounds on a call. Its total voice score was 75.30.
The two studies were run in different ways. The speed tests came from data collected on users’ phones, while the voice tests needed dedicated test calls over a shorter, controlled period.
Tech Insider said a latency of 24 ms is low enough for real-time use such as video calls and cloud gaming. It said the average download speed is well above what most streaming and gaming apps need.
The rankings have changed hands before. Engineering News reported in April 2026 that MTN held the top network spot in an earlier round of MyBroadband’s quarterly testing.
South Africa’s main mobile networks are Vodacom, MTN, Telkom and Cell C, along with the newer operator Rain. All of them compete for the title of the country’s best mobile network.
Tech Insider said the reports it reviewed did not include figures for the other operators from this testing round. It said MTN’s earlier win shows that the company can compete at the top of these rankings.
Source: this article is based on reporting by https://tech-insider.org/. Image: https://tech-insider.org/. Written with the help of AI and published by the Tzaneen Voice Technology desk. See our Editorial Standards.
Werner Jacobs covers technology for Tzaneen Voice. Werner reports on mobile networks, data prices, internet access, smartphones, apps, AI, cybersecurity and South African tech companies. Each story explains what a new product, price change or policy means for ordinary users in South Africa.