Cell C’s network is cooking – MyBroadband

Cell C’s network speeds and latency have improved far more than the average across South African mobile networks in the past year, analysis by market and network intelligence research firm Analytico shows.

In the year-to-date, MyBroadband’s Speed Test app users recorded average download speeds of 32.17Mbps on Cell C’s network.

That is 41% faster than the average speed measured during 2023. Across all networks, the year-on-year improvement for download speeds was a more modest 19%.

The average upload speed recorded on Cell C’s network in 2024 was 11.03Mbps, a 32% jump over 2023, compared with a 15% improvement in this metric across all networks.

Cell C’s average latency has also dropped 17% from 52.48ms to 43.48ms, compared to the average decline of 6%.

Latency or “ping” refers to the delay in data packets being delivered between two points of communication.

It is the delay between pressing enter after typing a web address in your browser and that website beginning to appear on your screen. Therefore, the lower the latency, the better.

While sceptics would argue that Cell C’s improvements were due to a decline in subscribers, resulting in increased capacity, the company told MyBroadband the performance was achieved despite a double-digit increase in overall data volumes.

Therefore, the network is performing exceptionally well, and the improvement cannot be attributed to a drop in subscribers.

MyBroadband asked Cell C how it achieved this drastic network improvement.

It explained that the improvement could be attributed to the completion of its customer migration to a virtual radio access network hosted by MTN, one of the company’s key infrastructure partners.

“Cell C and its infrastructure partner are constantly optimising network performance to improve overall customer experience,” the company said.

Cell C fully migrated all its prepaid customers to MTN’s network in June 2023, just over a year ago. It previously transferred all contract customers to roaming on Vodacom’s network.

The table below summarises Cell C’s year-on-year network improvements in the 2024 year-to-date (YTD) compared with 2023 and the average gains across all networks.

The years-long process of decommissioning Cell C’s infrastructure to reduce its network upkeep and maintenance bill was necessitated by the mobile network’s deep financial troubles.

It had also realised it would need to spend massive sums of money to compete with Vodacom and MTN, which it now uses as roaming partners.

The transition has effectively turned the mobile network into what the industry technically regards as a “full mobile virtual network operator (MVNO).”

The difference between Cell C and regular MVNOs in South Africa is that the latter don’t have any of their own radio frequency spectrum.

Cell C also remains a major mobile virtual network enabler (MVNE), with providers like Capitec Connect running over its infrastructure.

Cell C said it was working with its infrastructure partners to ensure that more capacity was made available as its traffic demand and subscribers grew. 

“Cell C is also actively monitoring its subscriber experience on its infrastructure partner networks through core statistics and network drive testing,” the operator said.

More improvements in the pipeline

One upcoming feature that could boost its network performance even further is Multi-Operator Core Network (MOCN) roaming.

This feature will allow Cell C to seamlessly and transparently transfer subscribers between Vodacom and MTN towers.

The switchover will depend on which network offers the best connection in an area at a given time.

In this way, Cell C hopes to offer the best of both South Africa’s major mobile network operators to its customers.

MOCN will also enable cores to coordinate with each other regarding interference, backhaul, traffic prioritisation, individual user authentication, and quality of service parameters.

MOCN roaming is already supported on the network that MTN builds and operates on behalf of Cell C.

Cell C is also actively testing 5G with its infrastructure partners but said that it could not provide any results at this stage.

MyBrroadband observed a handful of these tests conducted on its Speed Test platform, including some which achieved over 300Mbps download speeds.

The company is over four years behind Vodacom and MTN on 5G launches and nearly two years behind Telkom on the same.

It plans to reclaim its position as the third biggest mobile network from the latter, whose customer base passed Cell C’s in late 2020.