We wanted to find out how reliable and accurate these customer insights are, so we did some more digging and used statistics and customer ratings from other platforms.
By: The Daily Impact
My Broadband recently posted an article about the ‘best’ ISPs in South Africa. Rankings were determined by ISP customers doing speed tests and then rating overall service satisfaction with a star rating out of five on their website.
Some 241,572 users performed the speed test and gave a rating that fed the report’s insights.
We wanted to find out how reliable and accurate these customer insights are, so we did some more digging and used statistics and customer ratings from other platforms like Hellopeter and Google reviews, which paint a different picture.
We split the results into different categories, including the fastest ISP.
Here are the additional findings on the same list of ISPs used by My Broadband.
Satisfaction results from other review platforms
First, the My Broadband results
| ISP | Satisfaction Results |
|---|---|
| 1. Cool Ideas | 86% |
| 2. RSAWEB | 81% |
| 3. Webafrica | 80% |
| 4. Axxess | 77% |
| 5. Afrihost | 77% |
| 6. Home Connect | 74% |
| 7. Supersonic | 72% |
| 8. Vox | 71% |
| 9. MTN | 71% |
| 10. MWEB | 70% |
| 11. Vodacom | 70% |
| 12. HeroTel | 69% |
| 13. Internet Solutions | 68% |
| 14. Telkom | 63% |
| 15. Rain | 62% |
| 16. Cell C | 61% |
| ‘Smaller’ ISP Rankings | |
| 1. Cybersmart | 94% |
| 2. Wirulink | 90% |
| 3. Mind The Speed | 89% |
| 4. Level-7 | 88% |
| 5. Ikeja | 84% |
| 6. Metrofibre Networx | 80% |
| 7. BITCO | 78% |
| 8. Rocketnet | 78% |
| 9. Airmobile | 72% |
| 10. Jenny Internet | 63% |
| 11. Letaba Networks | 62% |
| 12. Accelerit | 57% |
Hellopeter results
It seems consumers use hellopeter mainly for complaints. Therefore, it is safe to assume that receiving positive feedback on this platform is quite tricky. Companies have done well if they have scored in the positive and have a low number of negative complaints. Also, hellopeter is turning the tables on being a platform for consumers to only vent as is evident from this article on Times Live.
In the article it reads:
As people began praising businesses, SA started seeing Hellopeter as the online review platform it is and not the complaints platform it was perceived to be
Please note that Vodacom, Telkom, MTN, Cell C and Internet Solutions are categorised under telecommunications companies and are not strictly classified as ISPs. Bitco is classified under IT not ISP. Also, the top 3 ISPs on Hellopeter don’t seem to provide fibre internet services but web hosting services.
| ISP | Avg. star rating / 5 | Trust index / 10 | Ranking on Hellopeter | *Net promoter score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. RocketNet | 4.23 | 9.7 | 4 | 81 |
| 2. Mind The Speed | 4.3 | 7.6 | 8 | 77 |
| 3. Wirulink | 2.87 | 7.4 | 9 | 32 |
| 4. Home Connect | 3.73 | 7.4 | 12 | 23 |
| 5. Jenny Internet | 3.26 | 6.7 | 14 | -16 |
| 6. Letaba Networks | 1.71 | NA | 18 | -64 |
| 7. Metrofibre Networx | 1.66 | 3.6 | 19 | -52 |
| 8. Cell C | 1.43 | 3.2 | 20 | -82 |
| 9. Level-7 | 3.22 | 4.9 | 23 | 11 |
| 10. Rain | 1.44 | 2.6 | 26 | -75 |
| 11. BITCO | 2.59 | 3.9 | 27 | 9 |
| 12. Accelerit | 1.59 | 2.1 | 27 | -77 |
| 13. Cool Ideas | 1.88 | 3.4 | 30 | -40 |
| 14. Vodacom | 1.34 | 2.3 | 31 | -84 |
| 15. Vox | 1.41 | 3.4 | 32 | -69 |
| 16. Supersonic | 1.21 | 3.1 | 34 | -83 |
| 17. Ikeja | 3.14 | 5.5 | 35 | 34 |
| 18. Cybersmart | 1.66 | 2.5 | 42 | -60 |
| 19. RSAWEB | 1.71 | 2.5 | 44 | -63 |
| 20. Axxess | 1.48 | 2 | 49 | -79 |
| 21. Telkom | 1.39 | 1.7 | NA | -94 |
| 22. MTN | 1.47 | 1.7 | NA | -89 |
| 23. Internet Solutions | 1.54 | NA | NA | -100 |
| 24. HeroTel | 1.46 | 1.9 | 51 | -55 |
| 25. Webafrica | 1.3 | 1.8 | 52 | -90 |
| 26. MWEB | 1.4 | 1.7 | 53 | -85 |
| 27. Afrihost | 1.52 | 2 | 0 | -74 |
| 28. Airmobile | NA | NA | NA | NA |
Google Reviews
Please note that MTN, Vodacom, Telkom and Cell C had store rankings only not not overall rankings as an ISP.
| ISP | No. of reviews | Avg. Rating / 5 |
|---|---|---|
| 1. RSAWEB | 5508 | 4.7 |
| 2. Afrihost | 28 478 | 4.6 |
| 3. Ikeja | 10 | 4.6 |
| 4. Rocketnet | 116 | 4.4 |
| 5. Home Connect | 1632 | 4.3 |
| 6. Level-7 | 509 | 4.3 |
| 7. Webafrica | 13 550 | 4.2 |
| 8. Internet Solutions | 82 | 4.1 |
| 9. Axxess | 1064 | 4 |
| 10. Jenny Internet | 86 | 3.8 |
| 11. Letaba Networks | 174 | 3.8 |
| 12. Wirulink | 205 | 3.6 |
| 13. Accelerit | 754 | 3.5 |
| 14. BITCO | 92 | 3.3 |
| 15. Vox | 481 | 3.2 |
| 16. Cool Ideas | 789 | 2.5 |
| 17. MWEB | 493 | 2.5 |
| 18. HeroTel | 195 | 2.5 |
| 19. Cybersmart | 226 | 2.5 |
| 20. Metrofibre Networx | 551 | 2.4 |
| 21. Rain | 304 | 1.9 |
| 22. Supersonic | 1052 | 1.4 |
| 23. MTN | NA | NA |
| 24. Vodacom | NA | NA |
| 25. Telkom | NA | NA |
| 26. Cell C | NA | NA |
| 27. Mind The Speed (only 1 review) | NA | NA |
| 28. Airmobile | NA | NA |
Fastest ISP
| ISP | MYBB Speed Test (Mbps) |
|---|---|
| 1. RocketNet | 63 |
| 2. Metrofibre Networx | 51 |
| 3. Rain | 46 |
| 4. Cool Ideas | 44 |
| 5. Cybersmart | 42 |
| 6. Afrihost | 41 |
| 7. RSAWEB | 39 |
| 8. Webafrica | 38 |
| 9. Home Connect | 37 |
| 10. Level-7 | 37 |
| 11. Mind The Speed | 36 |
| 12. Axxess | 35 |
| 13. Supersonic | 34 |
| 14. Airmobile | 34 |
| 15. MWEB | 30 |
| 16. Vox | 29 |
| 17. Vodacom | 24 |
| 18. HeroTel | 23 |
| 19. Accelerit | 23 |
| 20. Cell C | 22 |
| 21. MTN | 22 |
| 22. Wirulink | 22 |
| 23. BITCO | 22 |
| 24. Internet Solutions | 19 |
| 25. Telkom | 17 |
| 26. Letaba Networks | 8 |
| 27. Jenny Internet | 7 |
| 28. Ikeja | 5 |
Conclusion
There are different results across different platforms. It would be best if an accredited research company did this type of research. We need accurate statistics that we can trust.
Other factors to consider when choosing an ISP
RocketNet had an article published by Hypertext on what their technical experts would look for when selecting an ISP. We have summarised this below:
Throttling and shaping:
Some ISPs throttle and shape fibre internet speed without saying they do. To ensure you receive what you expect and pay for, one should brush up on their technical knowledge of throttling, shaping, and uncapped fibre internet.
ISP rankings on independent platforms
You can read about other people’s good and bad experiences with service providers from an unbiased perspective.
Research ISP’s using these types of platforms. Those achieving the highest ratings from customers are responsive to customer complaints, have them resolved speedily and generally provide high-quality service.
Internet support and education
Choose an ISP that gives you the after-sales support you need. Do they offer a suite of services like internet diagnosis apps? These apps empower customers to run fibre internet diagnosis tests at home.
Quality of their customer call centre
What is customer support like, and is your ISP proactive in dealing with your concerns?
Frequency of price adjustments and length of the contract
Does your ISP contract stipulate that price increases happen only once a year?
FNOs (fibre network operators) adjust pricing at different times of the year. Some ISPs pass price increases to their customers according to FNO adjustments, but others only do this once a year.
Equally important is knowing how long your contract is in effect. There is no need to sign up for 24 months when some ISPs offer month-to-month options with no price difference.
Latency on network
How close you are to servers affects entertainment activities like gaming and streaming movies, directly impacting your internet experience. ISPs should curb this issue by using tools like Cloudflare DNS, which is lightning quick in responding to queries and provides malware protection.
International connectivity
Which cable systems does your ISP use?
Ideally, you want to use an ISP that connects to undersea cables on either side of the country. If one line goes down, they can break out the internet from the other cable and continue delivering services.
