50GB to uncapped — South African mobile data battle

Several South African mobile networks offer many large or uncapped data packages, which are great options for home users without fibre.

MTN and Rain sell uncapped mobile data packages at price points that are competitive and often even cheaper than fibre packages from some major ISPs and network operators.

For example, you can get a Rain Basic 5G package for R499 per month, which offers up to a 20Mbps download speed.

If you don’t have Rain 5G coverage, you can get a MyMTN Home Fixed LTE package with up to 10Mbps speeds for the same price.

By comparison, 20/5Mbps fibre package from Webafrica on the Vumatel network is R549 per month.

Though this is faster than the MTN package, fibre coverage is still very limited in South Africa.

The chances of having fixed LTE coverage in your area are much higher, which makes it a more viable option for most households.

The table below shows the uncapped mobile data packages available in South Africa for less than R1,000 per month.

If you don’t require an uncapped package or cannot afford to pay around R500 or more per month on an Internet connection, there are affordable capped packages that have copious amounts of data.

If you are a less regular Internet user but need your connection to be fast when you do use it, then a capped package might also be a better option than uncapped.

MTN advertises up to 150Mbps download speeds on its capped MyMTN Home Fixed LTE packages, for example, which is much faster than the 30Mbps maximum speed on its high-end uncapped fixed LTE product.

Curiously, Vodacom limits the speeds on its capped mobile data packages, which make them less appealing. These are only available on a contract, but fortunately, they include a router.

Telkom recently dropped the pricing of its SmartBroadband Wireless LTE products, making them more competitive with offers from MTN and Cell C.

The table below shows some of the capped mobile packages available in South Africa with large data allocations.

Now read: Concerning trend in mobile data prices in South Africa