
Telecommunication in South Africa
The development of telecommunications in South Africa is roughly equivalent to the United States. Under the country code +27, there were a total of 101.80 million connections in 2021. Among them were 100.33 million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 1.7 per person. In the US, this figure is 1.1 mobile phones per person.With about 4.76 million webhosts, South Africa is below the world's average by population. At the end of 2020, 855,339 of these, or about 18 percent, were secured with SSL or comparable encryption.
Back to overview: South Africa
Development of telephone and internet connections
With an average download speed of 43.56 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, South Africa ranks 95th in an international comparison. The upload rate was only 35.34 Mbit/second (55th place).In mobile internet, i.e., on tablets and smartphones, South Africa comes 60th with a download speed of 35.14 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 7 Mbit was only enough for 127th place.
The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in February 2023 from 180 countries.
The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100 percent mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.
Access to the internet in South Africa from 1990 - 2020
Broadband internet in South Africa 2002 - 2021

Landlines 1990 - 2021
Mobile phones 1990 - 2021
All international calling codes
Distribution in 2021 | South Africa Total | South Africa percent | USA Total | USA percent |
---|---|---|---|---|
Broadband users | 1.69 m | 2.85 % | 127.03 m | 38.27 % |
Landlines | 1.47 m | 2.48 % | 97.11 m | 29.26 % |
Mobile cellulars | 100.33 m | 168.92 % | 361.62 m | 108.96 % |