MTN South Africa has come out tops in independent network ratings agency OpenSignal’s latest mobile experience report, beating its rivals in a number of categories including “download speed”, “5G availability” and “5G video experience”.

The mobile operator was also joint winner in a number of other categories in the report, but Telkom stood out as outright winner in “network availability”.

“MTN wins 11 awards in this report, seven outright and four jointly. MTN also wins all four of the ‘overall experience’ awards and four of the five ‘5G experience’ awards,” said OpenSignal. “Telkom wins the ‘availability’ award with our Telkom users spending 99.1% of the time with a 3G, 4G or 5G signal. Telkom took home the same award in last year’s report.”

OpenSignal collects billions of individual measurements daily from over 100 million devices globally, using the data to analyse mobile and broadband user experience on every major network operator. Various reports at country, regional and global level are then released periodically.

Despite its outright win in availability, Telkom garnered only three awards in total, jointly winning in the “voice experience” and “video experience” categories, respectively. With a total of five wins, MTN rival Vodacom won the second highest number of awards, boasting outright wins in the “5G upload speed”, “coverage experience” and “5G coverage experience” categories.

Cell C won a total of three categories: “video experience”, “voice experience” and “reliability”. Cell C in 2023 finalised the disposal of its masts and towers in favour of a roaming-only model with MTN and Vodacom, massively reducing its capital expenditure in the process.

5G winners

The move improved Cell C’s network experience ratings considerably, earning the operator a “global rising star” accolade in a separate OpenSignal report in February. The lack of an outright win in the current report, however, suggests Cell C’s network can only be as good as – but maybe not better than – those of its network partners.

Rain only topped out in the “voice experience” category, which the formerly data-only operator won jointly with Cell C, MTN and Telkom.

Read: MTN is still king of speed – but Vodacom’s 5G is faster

According to OpenSignal, South African consumers continue to increase their consumption of mobile services, especially data. Mobile operators are investing in network infrastructure to keep pace with demand, but challenges such as infrastructure vandalism and load shedding create additional costs.

“Mobile internet is the predominant mode of connectivity for the majority of South Africans, leading to a substantial growth in data traffic. MTN, for instance, reported a 23% surge in mobile data traffic from the first half of 2024 to the first half of 2025,” OpenSignal said in its report.

“Similarly, Vodacom experienced 36.4% increase in data traffic for its 2025 financial year, while Telkom’s usage grew by 24.1% in the same period. This leads operators to invest in upgrading their 4G, 5G and backhaul infrastructure to support this escalating demand, even as widespread 5G adoption among the general user base remains nascent.”

Vodacom and MTN launched 5G in South Africa in 2020. Vodacom operates more than 3 000 5G sites across the country, with MTN operating more than 4 000, according to OpenSignal.

Read: Cell C a step closer to possible JSE listing

Most 5G sites are concentrated in urban centres. Part of the problem relates to 5G towers needing to be closer together because of the radio frequencies they use. The other part of the problem relates to device penetration, with most 5G users in the cities. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media

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