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Walk into any conversation about internet in South Africa and you will hear the same advice: get fibre. Usually that is good advice. Sometimes it is not.

The truth is that fibre, fixed wireless and LTE solve different problems. Choosing badly means either paying for capacity you will never use, or fighting with a connection that cannot keep up with how you actually work. This is a plain breakdown of what each one is good at, so you can pick with your eyes open.

Start with what you actually do online

Before comparing technologies, answer four questions honestly:

• How many people are online at once? Two people checking email is a very different load to a household streaming in three rooms, or an office of twelve on video calls.
• Do you upload as much as you download? Most connections are advertised on download speed. If you send large files, host video calls, or back up to the cloud, your upload speed matters far more than the big number on the advert.
• How often can you tolerate downtime? A home can survive an hour offline. A business processing card payments cannot.
• What is actually available where you are? This decides more than preference does. Coverage varies enormously between suburbs, and between metro and outlying areas.

Fibre

Fibre is a physical light-carrying cable to your premises. It is the most stable of the three and gives you symmetrical upload and download speeds — if you buy 100Mbps, you get roughly 100Mbps in both directions.

Best for: households with heavy streaming, gamers, remote workers on video calls all day, and businesses with multiple staff online simultaneously.

Worth knowing: fibre still needs power at your premises to work. A fibre line during load shedding is only as reliable as the backup power running your router and the street-side equipment. Also check that fibre is actually live in your street before signing anything — “fibre ready” and “fibre available” are not the same thing.

Fixed wireless

Fixed wireless uses a radio link from a receiver on your roof to a nearby tower. There is no trenching and no waiting for a cable to reach your street, which is why it reaches areas fibre does not.

Best for: homes and businesses in areas without fibre coverage, temporary or remote sites, and anyone who needs to be connected quickly.

Worth knowing: wireless performance depends on line of sight to the tower and on how congested that tower is at peak times. If you have trees, tall buildings or a hill between you and the tower, ask for a site survey before committing. A good provider will do this rather than sell you a link that disappoints.

LTE and mobile connections

LTE runs over the mobile network. It is the least predictable of the three because it shares capacity with everyone else on that cell tower, and it varies by time of day and weather.

Best for: failover — a second connection that takes over when your main line drops — plus single users who move around, and short-term needs.

Worth knowing: LTE is excellent as a backup and frustrating as a primary connection for a busy office. Treating it as redundancy rather than your main line is usually the right call.

The load shedding factor

This is the part most comparisons skip. Whatever technology you choose, your internet stops when the power does. The practical questions are:

• Is your router on a UPS or inverter? A small UPS that keeps a router and ONT alive for a few hours is inexpensive and makes an enormous difference.
• Is the provider’s own equipment backed up? Ask directly — if the tower or exchange loses power, your line goes down regardless of what is in your house.
• Do you have failover? For a business, a second connection on a different technology is often less about speed and more about staying reachable.

Upload speed: the number people ignore

Most adverts lead with download speed because it is the bigger number. But the complaints we hear most often — calls that freeze, files that take forever to send, backups that crawl overnight — come down to upload capacity.

If you work from home and live on video calls, or if your business sends large files, look at the upload figure before you sign. On fibre you can usually choose a symmetrical option. On wireless and LTE, upload is typically a fraction of download, and that shapes what the connection is good for.

A checklist before you sign anything

• Confirm the service is genuinely available at your exact address, not just your suburb.
• Ask for the upload speed, not only the download speed.
• Ask what happens to your connection during load shedding.
• Ask whether the router is included, and whether you are locked into a contract.
• Ask what the typical install lead time is.
• Check whether there is a fair-use policy or a hard cap, and what happens when you reach it.
• Find out how support works and what hours it runs — and test that number before you commit.

Still not sure which one fits?

There is no single best connection, only the best one for your situation. If fibre is live in your road and you have steady power, it is usually the simplest answer. If it is not, fixed wireless will often serve you well. If you are running a business, the more useful question is not “which is fastest” but “what happens when this goes down”.

If you would like a straight answer for your address, check what is available in your area or get in touch and we will tell you honestly — including when a product is not the right fit for what you are trying to do.