SA’s best city for gaming

Latest Net Index statistics reveal the best cities for online gaming in SA

James Etherington-SmithSeptember 10, 2012

According to the latest Ookla Quality Index statistics, Durban has the best quality Internet connections in South Africa, with an R-Factor rating of 86.35.

This is followed by Cape Town (82.97), Pretoria (82.68), and Johannesburg (78.51).

Ookla’s Household Broadband Quality Index is based on recent test results from Pingtest.net. The R-factor is an indication of the quality of VoIP calls on a network, and is calculated using various metrics including latency, jitter and packet loss.

An R-Factor of between 80 and 94 is considered desirable, while values of between 70 and 80 are acceptable. These R-Factor metrics are also important indicators of line quality for the purposes of online gaming, for which a stable and reliable connection can be more important to the gaming experience than sheer bandwidth.

Looking at bandwidth measurements, South Africa’s current average download speed is 3.14Mbps, and average upload speed is 1.28Mbps.

By city, the average download and upload speeds see the cities reverse their ranking.

Durban’s average download speed is 2.42Mbps, and average upload is 0.79Mbps.

Cape Town’s average download speed is 2.80Mbps, and average upload is 1.10Mbps.

Pretoria’s average download speed is 3.14Mbps and average upload speed is 1.23Mbps.

Johannesburg tops the results with an average download speed of 3.76Mbps and average upload speed of 1.53Mbps.

All of the above-mentioned results are based on the last 30 days of testing and analysis conducted by Ookla, available at the time of publication.