Telecommunications giant MTN has dominated overall network performance and consistently outperformed its competitors across the most important metrics in MyBroadband Insights’ third quarter 2025 Mobile Network Quality Report.

MTN maintained its title of South Africa’s best mobile network during the third quarter of 2025, with a network quality score of 9.95.

It recorded the highest average download speed at 93.72 Mb/s, upload speed of 30.02 Mb/s and latency of 29 ms.

MTN was also the top-performing network in major metropolitans, including Tshwane, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela Bay, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini and Mangaung.

Its strong performance is attributed to continued investment in infrastructure for both LTE and 5G networks, the report showed.

Cell C maintained its position as the second-best operator with a network score of 7.82, followed by Vodacom, which recorded a network score of 7.45.

Cell C had a download speed of 66.64 Mb/s, upload speed of 29 Mb/s and latency of 35 ms, while Vodacom achieved download speeds of 72.20 Mb/s, upload speeds of 15.60 Mb/s and latency of 32 ms.

Cell C's performance is driven by completing its customer migration to a virtual radio access network hosted by MTN and optimisation strategies, according to MyBroadband Insights’ third quarter 2025 Mobile Network Quality Report.

Vodacom delivered the best 5G performance in the country, driven by its ongoing investment in the latest network technologies.

Telkom achieved a network quality score of 5.74, with download speeds of 46.24 Mb/s, upload speeds of 11.64 Mb/s and latency of 28 ms.

Rain positioned last with a score of 4.12, holding download speeds of 22.93 Mb/s, upload speeds of 11.08 Mb/s and latency of 20 ms.

The findings are based on 313 632 speed tests conducted by mobile users across South Africa between July 1 and September 30.

The testing included a combination of crowdsourced data and dedicated drive tests, providing a comprehensive assessment of mobile network performance.

As part of the drive testing, MyBroadband Insights travelled 20 000 km and tested networks in South Africa’s major cities, towns and roads, using high-end smartphones with support for the latest technologies, as well as mid-range devices that reflect the experience of typical users.