Best Fibre for Streaming
Streaming Netflix, Showmax or Prime in 4K? Here's the 2026 guide to fibre speed, ISP choice and the live packages worth your money.
Live streaming-grade fibre deals
Already filtered to the 555 lines at 50 Mbps or faster - the floor for comfortable multi-device 4K. Symmetrical lines aren't required for streaming, but help if you also work from home.
Prices checked 9 November 2026 · price-per-Mbps shown on every deal
- Free-to-use router
- Free install promo
- Free-to-use router
- Free install promo
- Free-to-use router
- Free install promo
- Free-to-use router
- Free install promo
- Free-to-use router
- Free install promo
- Free-to-use router
- Free install promo
- Free-to-use router
- Free install promo
- Free-to-use router
- Uncapped
- Local SA support
- Prime Video Mobile Edition
- Free Wi-Fi router
- Free install + activation
- 60 free voice mins (Vobi)
- Promo: first 4 months
- Free-to-Use router
- Free setup worth R1725
100/100 Mbps Uncapped
55/25 Mbps Uncapped
300/200 Mbps Uncapped
100/50 Mbps Uncapped
100/100 Mbps Uncapped
50/25 Mbps Uncapped
50/50 Mbps Uncapped
120/120 Mbps Uncapped
50/25 Mbps Uncapped
50/50 Mbps Uncapped
200/200 Mbps Uncapped
50/50 Mbps Uncapped
50/25 Mbps Uncapped
55/25 Mbps Uncapped
50/50 Mbps Uncapped
50/50 Mbps Uncapped
50/50 Mbps Uncapped
60/30 Mbps Uncapped
50/25 Mbps Uncapped
60/30 Mbps Uncapped
50/25 Mbps Uncapped
55/55 Mbps Uncapped
120/60 Mbps Uncapped
60/60 Mbps Uncapped
Showing 24 of 555 deals · Prices indicative · Sign-up via the listed ISP · Affiliate links may earn us a commission on referrals
What a streaming-grade line costs per network
There are 555 streaming-grade lines in the table above, spread across 40 fibre networks. They are not interchangeable: the cheapest way onto Octotel is R99 a month, while the same question on Purple Forest starts at R947. Which networks reach your address is usually decided for you, so the useful comparison is within a network rather than across the whole list.
| Network | Streaming-grade lines | Cheapest | Speed | Best R/Mbps, any plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Octotel | 32 | R99/mo | 100/100 Mbps | R0.40 |
| Vumatel | 38 | R439/mo | 100/50 Mbps | R0.70 |
| Herotel | 2 | R499/mo | 120/120 Mbps | R3.50 |
| Metro Nova | 22 | R539/mo | 50/50 Mbps | R1.33 |
| Unifybr On High | 5 | R577/mo | 50/50 Mbps | R1.30 |
| Accelerit | 5 | R593/mo | 50/50 Mbps | R7.53 |
| Openserve | 44 | R599/mo | 50/25 Mbps | R1.00 |
| Frogfoot | 50 | R599/mo | 60/30 Mbps | R1.00 |
| Metro Nexus | 26 | R599/mo | 60/60 Mbps | R1.24 |
| Fibre Geeks | 25 | R599/mo | 50/25 Mbps | R2.46 |
| Lightstruck | 28 | R619/mo | 50/25 Mbps | R1.97 |
| Evotel | 24 | R645/mo | 60/60 Mbps | R1.35 |
| 28 smaller networks | 254 | from R649/mo | various | see table above |
The last column is the best rand-per-Mbps available anywhere on that network, at any speed — not the unit price of the cheapest line beside it. The two are rarely close, and the gap is the argument against buying on headline price. The entry tier in this segment is R99 for 100 Mbps on Octotel, which is R0.99 per Mbps; the best unit price in the whole segment is R0.40 per Mbps. Paying a little more for a much faster line is usually the better deal; paying the minimum almost never is.
| Monthly | 12 months | 24 months | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Promotional rate, if it never ended | R99/mo | R1 188 | R2 376 |
| Standing rate after promo | R845/mo | R10 140 | R20 280 |
| Once-off fee | R250 once | R250 | R250 |
| What you actually pay | R742/mo avg | R8 898 | R19 038 |
The first row is the number that gets advertised, and it is the one to ignore. Octotel is discounted from R845 to R99 for the first 2 months, then steps up by R746 a month — a 754% increase on the rate that sold you the line. Over two years that is R19 038 rather than the R2 376 the headline price implies, which works out at R793 a month rather than R99. Budget on the standing rate and treat the discount as a rebate on the first few months. The totals above include the R250 once-off charge this line carries, but not a router you buy outright. Cancellation terms are the other cost that does not appear in a monthly price: no fixed term is not the same as no cancellation fee, and several ISPs here claw back a waived install if you leave inside six or twelve months.
Looking wider than this segment? Compare every fibre deal we track puts the full catalogue in one sortable table, and the cheapest fibre deals ranks the whole market on price and rand-per-Mbps rather than within one network.
What speed do you need
The right speed depends on resolution, the number of simultaneous streams, and other devices on the network.
HD 720p · 3 Mbps
Netflix's own recommendation is "3 Mbps or higher" for high definition. Per stream - so a second person watching needs a second 3 Mbps.
Full HD 1080p · 5 Mbps
"5 Mbps or higher", again per stream. This is what most people mean by "HD", and it is the tier above the one Netflix labels HD.
4K UHD · 15 Mbps
"15 Mbps or higher" per 4K stream. Netflix states no figure for HDR separately and says nothing about how many streams a line can run at once.
Everything else · not published
Showmax and DStv publish no comparable per-quality figure we can verify, so we cite Netflix alone rather than quoting a number nobody stands behind. Contention, Wi-Fi and HDR overhead are all real and all unpublished.
Netflix speed tiers
HD 720p · 3 Mbps
Netflix's stated minimum for high definition, read first-party from its Help Centre on 2026-11-09.
Full HD 1080p · 5 Mbps
Netflix's stated minimum for Full HD. The same figure applies on every plan that offers the quality.
4K UHD · 15 Mbps
Netflix's stated minimum for Ultra HD, per stream. Every stream count on this page is our arithmetic on this one figure.
Netflix recommends checking your connection from inside the app: from the Home screen, choose Get Help → Check your Network. The app verifies internet reachability and runs a quick speed test against Netflix's CDN. If your speed is below expectation, check Wi-Fi placement first, then your ISP.
How much of this market can actually carry 4K
Netflix publishes 15 Mbps per 4K stream and says nothing about how many streams a line can run at once. Divide every download speed we track by that figure and round down, and the answer at the bottom of the market is not what the pricing suggests.
We track 684 monthly-billed residential fibre lines. 20 of them — 2.9% — cannot carry a single 4K stream, and every one is a 5 or 10 Mbps line. That on its own is unremarkable. What matters is the price: the cheapest of those lines costs R293 a month, while the cheapest line in the whole catalogue that does clear a 4K stream costs R99. Paying less is not the trade-off being offered. At the entry end of this market you can pay 3.0× more for a line that cannot do the one thing this page is about.
Above that floor the market is generous. 90.4% of what we track clears two simultaneous 4K streams, and the lowest download tier that clears 4 is 60 Mbps — which is well below the tier most buying guides, including this one until today, point a 4K household at.
| Simultaneous 4K streams | Lines that clear it | Share of the pool | Lowest download tier that does |
|---|---|---|---|
| None | 20 | 2.9% | 5, 10 Mbps |
| 1 | 664 | 97.1% | 15 Mbps |
| 2 | 618 | 90.4% | 30 Mbps |
| 3 | 555 | 81.1% | 50 Mbps |
| 4 | 469 | 68.6% | 60 Mbps |
A capability CEILING, not a promise. Netflix states a recommended speed per video quality and says nothing about concurrency, so dividing download by 15 is our arithmetic and not Netflix's claim. It takes no account of contention at peak hour, Wi-Fi, HDR overhead or anything else sharing the line - none of which any operator publishes per package. Pre-paid passes are excluded throughout, because a pass buys a validity window rather than a month.
The cheapest 4K stream on this page
R132 buys one usable 4K stream for a year on RSAweb's Octotel line - 2 500 Mbps, 166 simultaneous 4K streams, R995 a month. The best per-stream rate of the 555 streaming-grade lines above.
What one 4K stream costs you for a year
Rand per usable 4K stream over twelve months, all in - promotional rate for as long as the operator publishes it, standing rate after, plus any once-off. It is the only way to compare a cheap slow line against an expensive fast one on the thing you are buying it for.
The spread is enormous. A year of one usable 4K stream costs R132 at the best point in the catalogue and R12 558 at the worst — a 95-fold difference for the same unit of capability. The cheapest per stream is RSAweb on Octotel, because the per-stream rate falls almost monotonically with download speed: the top of the market is dear in absolute terms and the best value per stream by a wide margin.
Which is exactly why the advertised monthly rate is the wrong number to shop on here. The table below gives the cheapest per-stream line at every download tier we track, so you can see where the curve flattens and stop paying for tiers past the point they buy you anything.
| Download tier | Usable 4K streams | Lines at this tier | Cheapest cost of one stream for a year | The line that does it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Mbps | 1 | 3 | R6 861 | Afrihost · Fibonacci |
| 20 Mbps | 1 | 24 | R4 404 | Afrihost · Openserve Web Connect |
| 25 Mbps | 1 | 19 | R4 765 | Accelerit · Accelerit |
| 30 Mbps | 2 | 41 | R2 726 | RSAweb · Metro Nexus |
| 35 Mbps | 2 | 3 | R4 754 | MWeb · TT Connect |
| 40 Mbps | 2 | 19 | R2 562 | Afrihost · Openserve Web Connect |
| 50 Mbps | 3 | 75 | R2 388 | Afrihost · Metro Nova |
| 55 Mbps | 3 | 11 | R2 279 | RSAweb · Octotel |
| 60 Mbps | 4 | 32 | R2 061 | Afrihost · Frogfoot |
| 65 Mbps | 4 | 3 | R3 037 | MWeb · TT Connect |
| 70 Mbps | 4 | 4 | R1 971 | Accelerit · Accelerit |
| 75 Mbps | 5 | 9 | R1 958 | RSAweb · Fibre Geeks |
| 80 Mbps | 5 | 5 | R1 720 | RSAweb · Metro Nova |
| 100 Mbps | 6 | 88 | R1 483 | RSAweb · Octotel |
| 120 Mbps | 8 | 25 | R1 225 | RSAweb · Frogfoot |
| 125 Mbps | 8 | 4 | R1 496 | Afrihost · WeFNO |
| 150 Mbps | 10 | 11 | R1 134 | MWeb · Metro Nova |
| 200 Mbps | 13 | 68 | R910 | RSAweb · Fibre Geeks |
| 240 Mbps | 16 | 12 | R712 | RSAweb · Frogfoot |
| 250 Mbps | 16 | 25 | R776 | MWeb · Metro Nova |
| 300 Mbps | 20 | 14 | R490 | RSAweb · Octotel |
| 400 Mbps | 26 | 10 | R531 | RSAweb · Frogfoot |
| 500 Mbps | 33 | 76 | R321 | MWeb · Metro Nexus |
| 600 Mbps | 40 | 2 | R458 | Afrihost · Waterfall Access Networks |
| 650 Mbps | 43 | 3 | R536 | MWeb · TT Connect |
| 850 Mbps | 56 | 4 | R287 | RSAweb · Evotel |
| 900 Mbps | 60 | 4 | R274 | Webafrica · Balwin Fibre |
| 1 000 Mbps | 66 | 67 | R164 | MWeb · Cybersmart |
| 2 500 Mbps | 166 | 1 | R132 | RSAweb · Octotel |
Twelve-month all-in means the promotional rate for as long as the operator publishes a length, the standing rate thereafter, plus any once-off charge. 2 monthly rows are excluded from this table entirely because their operator publishes a promotional END DATE rather than a length, so a twelve-month total cannot be computed without inventing a duration. Lines clearing no 4K stream are excluded because the rate would divide by zero - they are in the census above instead.
Identical capability, wildly different year
Hold the capability still - the same number of usable 4K streams - and ask what a year costs. This is the comparison the advertised price hides, and it is where the money is.
| Usable 4K streams | Lines | ISPs | Networks | Cheapest year | Dearest year | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 46 | 7 | 22 | R4 404 | R12 558 | 2.85× |
| 2 | 63 | 6 | 22 | R5 124 | R13 924 | 2.72× |
| 3 | 86 | 6 | 27 | R6 838 | R15 276 | 2.23× |
| 4 | 39 | 6 | 12 | R7 885 | R13 915 | 1.76× |
| 5 | 14 | 5 | 6 | R8 598 | R12 216 | 1.42× |
| 6 | 88 | 6 | 30 | R8 898 | R16 716 | 1.88× |
| 8 | 29 | 5 | 7 | R9 798 | R15 715 | 1.60× |
| 10 | 11 | 4 | 5 | R11 337 | R14 964 | 1.32× |
| 13 | 68 | 5 | 23 | R11 830 | R18 390 | 1.55× |
| 16 | 37 | 5 | 11 | R11 398 | R19 101 | 1.68× |
| 20 | 14 | 5 | 6 | R9 798 | R17 533 | 1.79× |
| 26 | 10 | 5 | 1 | R13 798 | R17 187 | 1.25× |
| 33 | 76 | 5 | 29 | R10 587 | R22 596 | 2.13× |
| 40 | 2 | 2 | 2 | R18 324 | R19 933 | 1.09× |
| 43 | 3 | 3 | 1 | R23 067 | R24 163 | 1.05× |
| 56 | 4 | 4 | 1 | R16 090 | R17 750 | 1.10× |
| 60 | 4 | 4 | 1 | R16 456 | R18 022 | 1.10× |
| 66 | 67 | 5 | 26 | R10 797 | R30 038 | 2.78× |
Capability here means download headroom only, which is what can be computed from published figures - two lines in the same row are not identical in upload, contention, once-off cost or support, and the cheapest is not automatically the right choice. Stream counts with only one line in the pool are omitted, since a group of one has no spread to report. 2 rows whose promotional length the operator does not publish are excluded.
Top streaming ISPs
Ranked on Ookla’s Speed Score, the most recent Speedtest Award published for South African fixed ISPs (Q1-Q2 2024). Read it for what it is: a weighted download, upload and latency composite from user-initiated speed tests, not a streaming or Netflix measurement. No published per-ISP streaming index exists for South Africa, so we do not rank one.
- 1. Cool Ideas — Speed Score 81.31, which we do not resell, so there is no package or price for it on this page.
- 2. Afrihost — Speed Score 64.42.
- 3. Webafrica — Speed Score 63.13.
- 4. Vox — Speed Score 61.79.
- 5. Axxess — Speed Score 61.39, which we do not resell, so there is no package or price for it on this page.
A Speed Score gap of this size is not a streaming verdict. Every line in the table above clears the 50 Mbps this page is built around, and above that floor what decides a 4K stream is contention at peak hour and your Wi-Fi, neither of which this award measures and neither of which we hold per-package figures for.
Where these lines are right, and where they are not
Both sides are computed from the 555 monthly lines at 50 Mbps or better that we track, so they move when the prices do.
A streaming line from this list is the right buy if…
- You want to compare across ISPs, not inside oneWe hold verified prices for 555 monthly packages at 50 Mbps or better from 7 ISPs across 40 networks, from R99/mo for 100/100 Mbps Uncapped up to 2 500 Mbps. Comparing one ISP's own range cannot tell you whether that range is competitive.
- You are buying on monthly priceThe cheapest genuinely-monthly line we track at 50 Mbps or better is 100/100 Mbps Uncapped on Octotel from RSAweb at R99/mo. That is the floor of this pool, not a mid-table price.
- You are buying on value per megabit2500/2500 Mbps Uncapped on Octotel from RSAweb works out at R0.40/Mbps against R0.99/Mbps for the cheapest line - the best rand-per-megabit in this pool at R995/mo.
- You upload as much as you download367 of the 555 monthly lines here are symmetrical, from R99/mo for 100/100 Mbps Uncapped on Octotel. Matched upload is what video calls, cloud backups and streaming out depend on.
Who should look elsewhere
- Your address has no fibre yetEvery price on this page is conditional on one of these 40 networks having reached your street, and that is decided by the trench outside, not by which ISP you prefer. Check coverage at the address first - if nothing shows, this page cannot help you and a fixed-wireless or LTE line is the comparison to run instead.
- You are judging on the headline price alone2500/2500 Mbps Uncapped on Octotel from RSAweb advertises R995/mo, but that rate runs for 2 months and then bills R1 995 - a jump of R1 000/mo, the steepest in this pool. 194 of the 555 lines here step up the same way. Compare what a line costs over two years, not what it costs in month one.
- You have budgeted the monthly but not the once-off454 of the 555 monthly lines here carry a stated once-off charge - typically R250, and as much as R3 450 on 200/200 Mbps Uncapped on Netstream. It lands on the first invoice, so a line that is a few rand cheaper every month can still cost more over the first year. The rest publish no figure at all, which is not the same as free.
- You want a gigabit on an entry-line budgetThe cheapest gigabit we hold a verified price for at 50 Mbps or better is 1000/250 Mbps Uncapped on Vumatel from RSAweb at R699/mo - 7.1x the cheapest line on this page. No amount of comparing closes that gap; it is a different product, not a better deal.
- You assume the cheapest line is the best valueIt is not. 50/50 Mbps Business Uncapped on Link Layer works out at R23.38/Mbps against R0.40/Mbps for 2500/2500 Mbps Uncapped on Octotel - 58.7x the price per megabit. If a bigger line fits the budget at all, it buys far more per rand.
Streaming questions
Stream in 4K without buffering
Pair a 50-100 Mbps fibre line with a top-3 streaming ISP. Compare live deals above.