First town in South Africa gets Rain 5G — ahead of Durban

Rain has launched 5G in Potchefstroom in the North West province, ahead of Durban, East London, and Gqeberha.

The launch of 5G in Potchefstroom follows an announcement by Rain in May that it plans to cover 5,000 new households with 5G each day for the rest of the year.

This aggressive rollout target means Rain will add over 1 million households to its 5G coverage area by the end of 2021.

Rain told MyBroadband its 5G rollout plan includes coverage of smaller towns. It is, therefore, no surprise that Potchefstroom received 5G services.

Rain has also grown its 5G coverage in Vereeniging and Vanderbijlpark.

Rain launched its first commercial 5G products in selected areas in Johannesburg and Pretoria in September 2019. At the time, Rain only had 250 5G towers covering an estimated 500,000 households.

Since then, Rain has significantly increased its 5G coverage. It has launched in Cape Town and now covers approximately 3 million households.

However, Durban is still waiting for 5G. Rain initially planned to launch 5G in Durban in 2020, but this did not happen.

Rain told MyBroadband in May that it is deploying its 5G network in the city.

MyBroadband asked Rain why it launched 5G in Potchefstroom ahead of Durban, but the company did not respond by the time of publication.

Rain 5G coverage in Potchefstroom

Rain 5G coverage in Vereeniging

Now read: Rain’s big 5G plan – covering 5,000 new households each day in 2021