South Africa ranks 52nd in GCI 2019.

Overall, the country has witnessed an improvement in the supply of ICT services and the user experience. Smartphone penetration has hit the maximum possible score, as has mobile broadband use. Moving forward, continuous investment in ICT infrastructure and security will be necessary to support the development of ICT in South Africa, as it tries to pull itself into the above-average group of nations.

Vodacom Group has created Africa’s first standards-based, commercial 5G service using 3.5GHz spectrum to initially deliver Fixed-Wireless Access broadband services for two enterprise customers in Lesotho. These subscribers now enjoy quicker deployment of broadband services with fiber-like connection speeds. With early access to this new technology, entrepreneurs, industry leaders, government, and the operator will be able to work together in the future to develop and incubate innovative applications to power digital transformation in Lesotho. In another first, the same standards-based 5G technology will now be deployed in South Africa, with speeds in excess of 700 Mbps and latencies of less than 10 milliseconds.