South African households without access to fast fibre or reliable mobile connectivity can consider a fixed-wireless access (FWA) package for their uncapped Internet needs.
While Internet service providers (ISPs) often use the term to describe packages that use 4G or 5G connectivity, FWA also includes other technologies.
This includes Wi-Fi-based and other wireless networking systems using licence-free frequency bands like 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz.
FWA uses specialised radio equipment arranged in a point-to-multipoint configuration to transmit and receive signals.
In this setup, a “host” device is connected to a tower with fibre backhaul to the Internet. Microwave backhaul could be used in more remote areas without a fibre link.
Client devices in the form of dish-style antennas are fitted at high points on customers’ homes and aimed at the host device.
FWA rollouts are substantially cheaper than conventional trenched fibre connectivity, making it possible for broadband providers to roll out FWA in areas where FTTH is not feasible.
Dedicated fixed wireless Internet service providers are commonly abbreviated as Wisps, although many ISPs that sell other products also offer FWA products.
Many reputable Wisps are members of the Wireless Access Providers’ Association (Wapa), an industry representative body established in 2006.
At the time of publication, its website showed it had well over 200 members across South Africa, counting associates, principals, and vendors.
However, the number that actually provide Internet services to South African households is much smaller.
Below are summaries of four major South African Wisps that sell residential products.
Hero Wireless
Herotel, which also offers fibre connectivity, is the largest fixed-wireless Internet service provider in South Africa.
It started operating in 2014 and consolidated 33 smaller Wisps under a single umbrella.
Herotel focuses primarily on smaller, underserved towns that are not a major target for large FNOs and other broadband providers, although it also offers fibre connectivity in certain parts of bigger cities like Pretoria.
Like its fibre business, Hero Wireless operates on a closed-access basis, which means it sells all its packages directly to customers and does not offer wholesale access to third-party ISPs.
Its FWA products start from R499 per month for a 4Mbps download and 2Mbps upload speed and go up to a 10/3Mbps package for R999 per month.
While those prices might seem expensive compared to the following options, it is important to note that the fees include installation, and a free-to-use router and setup worth R1,000.
Its packages are also available on a month-to-month basis, and subscribers can cancel without incurring heavy cancellation fees.
Rush Network
Rush Network is to the FWA industry what fibre network operators (FNOs) like Vumatel and Openserve are to the fibre-to-the-home industry.
Its open-access wireless network currently covers a population of over 12 million people, including 4 million homes and 1.2 million businesses.
Rush offers its network to various ISPs — including Activefibre, Cybersmart, Die Internet, Opentel, Huge Connect, and Wirulink — which sell packages to end-users.
Its website lists 170 packages from all its partner ISPs — with 12-month, 24-month, and month-to-month products on offer. Pricing varies from R320 to R4,248 per month.
Download speeds start at 5Mbps and go up to 100Mbps, while uploads range from 1Mbps to 50Mbps.
Rush also says its network delivers very low latencies of under 20 milliseconds, meaning you should get a better ping than when using fixed-LTE.
Supersonic
MTN-owned ISP Supersonic offers an FWA product that it says is different from the rest of the pack.
Dubbed “Air Fibre”, it uses the same 5.8GHz radio frequency spectrum as newer Wi-Fi technologies but employs the Tarana Wireless Gigabit 1 system.
Supersonic said this system, developed by a team with 26 PhDs between them from universities like Stanford, Berkeley University, and MIT, is capable of superior interference cancellation through advanced beam-forming technology.
In addition, Supersonic can precisely control resources on a tower, ensuring customers get the speed they pay for.
Air Fibre packages are available with the following speeds and prices:
- 5/1Mbps — R399
- 10/2Mbps — R499
- 20/4Mbps — R599
- 50/10Mbps — R799
- 100/20Mbps — R999
Wirulink
Wirulink offers several types of broadband and connectivity packages, but among its key products is FWA on the Rush Network.
The company offers three tiers of FWA packages — Unreal, Express, and Professional — with download speeds ranging from 5Mbps to 100Mbps, and uploads between 1Mbps and 50Mbps.
The Unreal and Express packages are best-effort and intended for home or small business use, while Professional comes with a service-level agreement ensuring high-end performance and quick turnaround for customer issues.
The Unreal packages are the most affordable but have fair usage policies (FUPs) that drop maximum speeds significantly after the first several hundred gigabytes are consumed in a month.
For example, for R199 per month, you can get a 10/2Mbps package that reduces to 4/1Mbps after the month’s first 300GB of consumption. A top-end 35Mbps option is reduced to the same FUP speeds after 500GB of consumption.
The Express range does not come with a FUP and starts with a 5/1Mbps package at R519 per month. The top-end 100/20Mbps option sells for R3,099.
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