Axxess named Telkom's top wholesale partner for a sixth year as LTE carries 99,5% of South Africa
The award lands in a market where mobile broadband reaches almost every South African but fixed home internet still reaches fewer than one household in five.
Axxess has been named Telkom’s Best ISP Wholesale partner for the sixth year running, an award that says as much about how South Africans get online as it does about the company that won it.
As BusinessTech reported on 16 September, the recognition went to Axxess for the sixth consecutive year. The award is Telkom’s own assessment of its wholesale partners, and six years of it is a record rather than a moment.
What the numbers say about how we connect
Mobile broadband covered 99,89% of South Africa’s population in 2025, with 4G and LTE reaching 99,5% of the country. Fixed internet at home reached only 17,4% of households in the same period. Fibre, for all the attention it gets, remains a minority connection in this country.
That gap is the market. Millions of South African households cannot get fibre, either because the infrastructure has not reached their street or because the cost and the contract do not suit them right now. LTE is what they use instead.
What R299 a month buys
Uncapped Telkom LTE from Axxess starts at R299 a month. There is no fixed line, no installation appointment and no long-term contract. The package includes a free SIM delivered within three business days, with a R300 account credit if Axxess misses that window. Speeds run between 10Mbps and 50Mbps under good LTE conditions.
The SIM is not locked to a single tower, so it works anywhere inside the national coverage area. That matters for a household that moves between home, a family member’s place and the coast, and it matters for anyone who has been told their address is not fibre-ready.
Axxess also offers a 25GB Anytime Data package on the Telkom Mobile network at R99 a month, with no day or night restrictions and unused data rolling over for one month.
Why LTE still carries this country
The demand behind these packages is not complicated. South African households run several devices at once, work from home, stream, game and keep smart devices online. Connectivity that stops during load shedding is a problem, and Axxess sells a UPS that keeps a router running through an outage.
The month-to-month terms are the other half of it. A 24-month commitment is a hard sell in a country where incomes move and addresses change, and the absence of one is a real part of what is being bought.
The gap the award points at
Six consecutive years as Telkom’s top wholesale partner is a business result, and it belongs to Axxess. It also measures something larger: the size of the market that fixed-line internet has not reached.
Until fibre reaches the remaining households, or the price of it falls far enough to compete, LTE will keep doing the work. That is the fact behind the award, and it is the one an ordinary reader will recognise from their own street.
Source: BusinessTech, Why more South Africans choose Axxess for Telkom LTE
