Telecommunications group Vodacom has secured the top position in rankings by independent crowd sourced data company Tutela.

Tutela conducted research into the mobile network experiences of South African consumers across 18.9-billion measurements collected from January to March 2022 across network operator coverage areas nationally.

Tutela’s Mobile Experience Snapshot Report April 2022 revealed that Vodacom dominated in core consistent quality (CCQ) and excellent consistent quality (ECQ) for its mobile connections.

“Vodacom leads the field by 6.6% in the CCQ measurement and 7.1% in the ECQ measurement,” says Vodacom South Africa technology director Beverly Ngwenya.

In the Consistent Quality metric, showing the CCQ threshold of moderately intensive use cases, including web browsing, social media applications or standard-definition video streaming and ECQ thresholds of demanding use cases, such as 1080p video streaming, high definition Skype video calling or multiplayer online games, Vodacom achieved a CCQ measurement of 83.1% and an ECQ threshold of 71.5%.

Under this metric, Tutela measures six key performance indicators, including the average download speed, upload speed, latency, jitter, packet loss and time to first byte, calculating what percentage of tests meet or exceed these thresholds at a core level and at an excellent level.

MTN secured CCQ and ECQ percentages of 76.4% and 64.4% respectively, while Telkom achieved a core threshold of 76.5% and an excellent threshold of 59.3%. Cell C’s CCQ reached 60% and ECQ reached 43.2%.

“Our focus is always on improving customer experience for all our customers across our network, and these results show that our investment into our South African network is paying dividends, with our customers receiving an unsurpassed experience when it comes to their network quality experience,” Ngwenya says.

According to the research, Vodacom outranked its rivals in delivering the best quality fourth-generation (4G) and fifth-generation (5G) coverage in South Africa and consistent quality for mobile connections.

Tutela’s Mobile Experience Snapshot Report April 2022 ranked Vodacom the highest in delivering relative geographic coverage in South Africa, with a score of 546/1000 for 4G/5G coverage and 622/1000 for total coverage.

Comparatively, MTN achieved scores of 480/1000 and 578/1000 for 4G/5G coverage and total coverage respectively.

Cell C secured scores of 356/1000 for 4G/5G coverage and 427/1000 for total coverage and Telkom reached scores of 324/1000 for 4G/5G and 354/1000 for total coverage.

“Vodacom’s R50-billion investment over the past five years into our South African network has clearly paid off,” Ngwenya continues, noting that Vodacom South Africa will continue to meet the high demand for data and focus on its roll-out of connectivity by committing at least R11-billion to network infrastructure in the country in the next financial year.

“This past financial year, Vodacom has increased 4G population coverage in South Africa to 97.9%. In March, 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.”

In the speed test category, MTN ranked Number 1 with download speeds of 24.3 Mb/s and upload speeds of 9.1 Mb/s, followed by Vodacom with download and upload speeds of 20.3 Mb/s and 9.3 Mb/s respectively.

Telkom’s download speeds reached 13 Mb/s and its upload speeds reached 4.6 Mb/s, while Cell C’s download speeds were 10 Mb/s and upload speeds were 5.6 Mb/s.

In the latency category, MTN achieved a latency of 18.1 ms, Telkom 18.4 ms, Vodacom 18.9 ms and Cell C 20.9 ms.