How to choose the best fibre deal in SA

Get connected, stay connected and pay less with the best fibre internet deals in SA!

Choosing a fibre deal can be tricky, depending on whether your decision is driven by cost, speed, quality or support. In the same way that you can only ever have two of the trifecta of 'good', 'cheap' and 'fast', choosing the best fibre package for your needs is about prioritising your requirements. So how do you make the call?

Cheap, Fast, Reliable Internet

A fibre connection is definitely the way to go, particularly if you're able to lightly loadshed-proof yourself with a small uninterrupted power supply (UPS) that can power your ONT box and router — the two elements of your fibre connection that sit inside your home. While cellphone towers stop working when their backup batteries go flat (or missing!), a fibre connection will stay up during loadshedding, and you can access it if you can power it.

Crucially, you'll have to make sure fibre is available in your area and what fibre packages the providers can offer.

Everyone wants fast internet, but it's hard to justify dropping nearly R2,000 a month on a gigabit fibre line, especially for your home. Faster speeds will (eventually) come at lower prices, but for the moment, most streaming TV viewers and even gamers should be perfectly content with a 50Mbps line if it's reliable and performs at the speed it says it does on the box. If you're only going to be checking your email and mooching around on TikTok, you can pay less for a slower connection because you won't need massive bandwidth. Obviously, you can compare fibre deals with Hippo.co.za to help you find the balance between cost and speed to meet your needs.

Gear Up!

Fibre providers can't trade on cost and speed alone; they need to be there when you need them and provide a stable, reliable service. Many of them also throw in a preconfigured Wi-Fi router that arrives at your door and allows you to get online as soon as it's powered up. Others want you to work a little harder for your streaming fix, so they'll expect you to go out and get your own and set it up, which is usually fairly simple, but can be frustrating if you're not entirely tech-savvy.

Requiring your provider to configure your line and modem can delay getting online by anything between 48 hours and four weeks, so read up on their reliability and service offering before jumping on what looks like a cheap deal. Remember the 'cheap', 'fast', 'good' wheel of pain...

Power Up!

Your fibre provider's job is to keep you connected to the internet — not the grid — so make sure you have a way of loadshed-proofing your fibre line so you can work, play and relax while Eskom takes away the rest of your nice things. Some fibre deals come with a UPS as a sweetener, but others leave electricity provision to you.

A UPS is basically a battery backup that keeps your devices powered up for a limited time, depending on the size of the battery. You need to pick one that has enough juice to power your ONT and router for at least four hours of loadshedding. It also needs to charge fast enough to supply you with another four hours by the time your next stop on the world's most annoying roulette wheel comes around. If you're keen to stay online when Eskom is offline, you can also check out and compare solar backup deals.

Also read: How to do an accurate internet speed test

Find the balance, compare the costs, read any potential internet service provider's outage page to see how regularly their service is interrupted — and get connected!

This article is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, legal or medical advice.