From no Internet to 100Mbps in 4 hours

MyBroadband purchased Afrihost’s new Pure LTE uncapped broadband service to put it through its paces, and the results were good.

Afrihost launched its new fixed-LTE products last month, offering five packages ranging between 80GB and uncapped.

An Afrihost Pure LTE 40GB + 40GB service costs R199, with the price increasing to R949 for an uncapped service.

The uncapped package is subject to a monthly threshold of 1TB. Once you’ve reached this limit, your connection speed will be limited to 1Mbps for the remainder of the month.

Afrihost Pure LTE is offered over MTN’s award-winning LTE network, which guarantees a good performance in most locations.

MyBroadband decided to put Afrihost’s uncapped offering to the test.

We purchased a new Afrihost uncapped Pure LTE service through the ISP’s website and client zone shortly before 09:00 on Wednesday.

The order was processed, the payment verified, the SIM packed, and the package handed to the courier within 30 minutes. The package was on route to us at around 09:30.

Shortly before 13:00, we received a call from the courier that he was at our house, ready to deliver the SIM and complete the RICA process.

The process to order a new Afrihost Pure LTE service was easy and efficient, and it was truly impressive that we received the service within 4 hours.

With the SIM in hand, it was time to put the Afrihost uncapped Pure LTE service through its paces.

We placed the SIM in a Huawei B618 LTE router, changed the APN to “ws.afrihost.fwa”, and we were good to go.

The first two speed tests exceeded 100Mbps – 102Mbps and 136Mbps – but after that, download speeds ranged between 20Mbps and 40Mbps.

Upload speeds were stable at between 44Mbps and 46Mbps, while latency ranged between 32ms and 35ms.

It felt as if the download speed was throttled to around 30Mbps after the first two speed tests, but it is difficult to prove that it is the case.

MTN’s own uncapped fixed-LTE service, which costs R799 per month on a 24-month contract, is throttled to 30Mbps. It may, therefore, also be applied to the Afrihost Pure LTE offering.

However, Afrihost said that it does not throttle speeds on this product and that the slow-down may have been a network-related issue.

Despite the slower-than-expected download speed, the service performed well and did what it promised on the box.

Netflix and YouTube content streamed at 1080p without any buffering, and the service performed well with general online activities like surfing the web or streaming music.

Afrihost uncapped Pure LTE is a good alternative to fibre if you need to get a broadband service fast or if you cannot get fibre.

The 1TB monthly threshold is large enough for most households and SMEs, and the price is attractive for a month-to-month service.

Speed test results

The table below provides an overview of the performance of Afrihost’s uncapped Pure LTE service.

Now read: Afrihost slashes MTN fixed LTE prices — 800GB for R749