Rain has officially launched its 5G service to the public, offering unlimited data at speeds of up to 700Mbps at R1,000 per month.

Rain first launched its 5G products in September, but this was only open to a “select group of existing customers”.

The company has now opened its network to anyone who has 5G coverage and has made its latest 5G coverage map available online.

Rain’s 5G service is currently available in many areas in Johannesburg and Tshwane – where it has around 250 towers – with an estimated 500,000 households in the coverage area.

During 2020, Rain hopes to expand the network to Cape Town and Durban, and in due course cover all of metropolitan South Africa with 2,000 live 5G sites.

Real-world speeds

Rain Chief Marketing Officer Khaya Dlanga previously said Rain has seen speeds approaching 700Mbps in ideal conditions.

However, in real-world conditions, operators 5G subscribers can expect to experience speeds of around 200Mbps.

In real-world tests conducted on MyBroadband’s speed test platform, an average download speed of 500Mbps – with speeds peaking at 700Mbps – were achieved.

Watching multiple 4K Netflix streams while downloading large files simultaneously was no problem for the connection.

Upload speeds were significantly slower than download speeds, though, hovering between 10Mbps-20Mbps.

Ordering Rain 5G

Consumers can now order Rain’s 5G service from the company’s website after ensuring they have coverage where they live.

There is only one product available: Rain unlimited data for R1,000 per month with a Huawei 5G CPE Pro router for R3,450 (once-off).