South Africa Climbing Global Mobile Rankings On 4g Strength

This is according to OpenSignal's new Global Network Excellence Index report , which looked at data from 1 January to 31 March 2025. OpenSignal said the report is meant to help regulators and mobile operators benchmark the quality of their network infrastructure against their peers.

"Based on latest data, South Africa rose four places to 60th place globally and rose two places to 23rd position among large land area markets, defined as those with a land area larger than 200 000sq km," OpenSignal said in a statement on Tuesday.

"South Africa's rise was due to a mainly on a 2 in 4G/5G availability, 5 in excellent consistent quality and a dramatic 29 in 4G download speed 11Mbit/s."

A hundred and thirty-four countries were compared. South Africa's improved performance in 4G connectivity was offset by a poorer showing in OpenSignal's 5G rankings, where it fell 10 places to 42 nd out of the 64 countries included in this part of the report.

Despite 4G coverage in South Africa being north of 90, device penetration remains a problem, with a significant portion of the population still reliant on cheaper 2G or 3G feature phones to meet their connectivity needs. The South African government plans to have mobile operators shut down their 2G and 3G networks by 31 December 2027.