Vodacom outperformed its peers MTN, Telkom and Cell C in delivering quality 4G and 5G coverage across the country in the first three months of the year, according to a study by Canadian firm Tutela.
The research provides an overview of the South African mobile experience from Tutela's crowdsourced mobile network testing.
Tutela, which crowdsources mobile usage and experience data from millions of mobile devices in 60 countries to provide insight to the mobile industry, collected local data from January to March, leading to the compilation the Mobile Experience Snapshot Report April 2022.
Data collected includes mobile signal strength, mobile connection quality and performance of different mobile apps in different locations.
The Tutela study shows Vodacom’s dominance, ranking the operator the highest in delivering relative geographic coverage in South Africa. This refers to the number of places where users have received coverage.
Also, the study says, Vodacom dominated in core consistent quality (CCQ) and excellent consistent quality (ECQ) for its mobile connections, “especially for popular and demanding use cases, including high-definition video streaming, video calling, or multiplayer online games”.
Vodacom outranked rivals, leading the field by 6.6% in the CCQ measurement and 7.1% in the ECQ measurement.
Tutela measures six key performance indicators − the average download speed, upload speed, latency, jitter, packet loss and time to first byte − and calculates what percentage of tests meet or exceed these thresholds.
These metrics, the company says, are critical to ensure a smooth experience across applications in modern mobile user experience such as video-streaming, high-definition video and social media apps.
Beverly Ngwenya, Vodacom SA technology director, comments: “Our focus is always on improving customer experience for all our customers across our network, and these results show that our investment in our South African network is paying dividends, with our customers receiving an unsurpassed experience when it comes to their network quality experience.
“Vodacom continues to prioritise its focus on innovation to provide select products and services, which deliver greater value to customers and become integral to their lives, homes and offices, whether that is streaming entertainment or real-time communications online.”
According to Ngwenya, Vodacom is accelerating reliable broadband coverage across SA, especially to rural areas.
In the past financial year, Ngwenya says, Vodacom increased 4G population coverage to 97.9%.
In March this year, Vodacom invested R5.38 billion in acquiring high-demand spectrum, which will be used to extend both 4G and 5G network coverage to more parts of the country, improve speeds and quality of service to customers, she adds.
“By expanding and investing in our network infrastructure, we want to ensure all South Africans can benefit from our reliable, quality, life-changing connectivity.”
Read the full Mobile Experience Snapshot Report April 2022 here.
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