South Africa's 5G boom is bypassing rural areas: Icasa

South Africa's 5G Population coverage has increased from 46.6% to 58% in a single year, the largest network coverage jump recorded in communications regulator Icasa's latest ICT Sector Report – but a huge gap remains in rural areas, with some provinces offering next generation connectivity to only 7% of their rural populations.

National figures extracted from questionnaire responses submitted by operators for the 12 months to September 2025 show that 4G/LTE population coverage has now reached 99.5% of the population, while 3G is 99.85%. Mobile broadband coverage reached 99.9%.

But the rapid national rollout of 5G masks deep provincial disparities, especially outside urban centres.

In rural areas, the Eastern Cape recorded only 7% 5G coverage – the lowest in the country – followed by the Northern Cape at 13%, KwaZulu-Natal at 15% and the North West at 16%. Even Limpopo, one of the country's most populous rural provinces, managed only 29%.

Gauteng led the way in rural 5G coverage with 74%, followed by Mpumalanga at 63%. But rural 5G coverage was less than 35% in seven out of nine provinces.

All provinces have achieved more than 89% rural coverage for 3G and 4G/LTE, confirming that the connectivity gap is a big problem for 5G – and by extension a problem of speed and capacity rather than basic access.

uneven roll-out

Even in urban areas, implementation is uneven. Gauteng leads the way in urban 5G coverage with 89%, followed by the Western Cape with 83% and KwaZulu-Natal at 80%. But according to Icasa data, the Free State lags behind at only 38%, the Northern Cape at 41% and the North West at 49%.

The implication is that operators have concentrated 5G investment in the country's three largest metropolitan areas, while smaller urban centers – and almost all rural areas – remain on older network technologies.

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The 5G disparity adds to the existing digital divide in fixed connectivity. According to Statistics South Africa data cited in the report, 82.1% of households had internet access from any location in 2024, but only 17.4% had fixed internet access at home – up from 14.5% a year earlier. The Western Cape led in confirmed adoption at 44.9%, while Mpumalanga lagged behind at only 5.6%.

Geographic broadband coverage – a measure of physical area covered rather than population – remained stable at 82.1%, suggesting limited new territory is being reached.

The connectivity gap extends to public facilities. Of the 21,878 government facilities that operators were required to add under spectrum licensing obligations imposed after the March 2022 auction, only 4,377 (20%) were added by October 2025. The backlog includes 13,850 schools, 2,669 public health facilities, 702 traditional authorities and 280 libraries.

Icasa said the pace of roll-out appeared to be insufficient to meet national digital transformation targets and called for “stronger monitoring, enforcement and possibly additional investment” to accelerate connections.

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The report said entry prices for smartphones have fallen to R399, lowering the barrier to access the device. — (c) 2026 NewsCentral Media