TP-Link wins MyBroadband networking award for a third straight year as South Africa still waits for Wi-Fi 7
The company took the Best Networking Brand title in 2024, 2025 and 2026, and says its newest router line is built for the congestion and dead spots South African homes already know.
TP-Link has won MyBroadband’s networking brand award for 2026, the third year in succession it has taken the title, after also winning in 2024 and 2025.
The award is judged on a set of measures that include how a brand is regarded locally, how its products perform and how satisfied its customers are. A brand in the running also needs a name for dependable equipment, a record of bringing new technology to market and a broad enough catalogue to cover what buyers actually need. Price against performance counts, and so does whether a company builds for the South African market rather than simply dropping global stock here.
On those measures MyBroadband placed TP-Link first for the year.
For a South African reader the interesting part is not the trophy. It is what the company is doing with the technology while the country’s networks catch up. TP-Link is a global player in networking and already sells Wi-Fi 7 equipment, the generation after the Wi-Fi 6 most South African homes and offices are running today. That gap is the point. Local buyers are being sold the previous standard while the manufacturer’s shelves abroad have moved on, and the company says it is positioned for the moment South Africa follows.
It has gone further than that. TP-Link recently announced the Archer 8, the first router line built on the Wi-Fi 8 platform. In its own words, the new range is meant to deal with two everyday complaints: speeds that drop from room to room, and networks that clog when too many devices are connected at once. Anyone who has watched a video stutter in the back bedroom while the lounge streams without trouble will recognise the problem the company is describing.
That is the practical case the award rests on. South African households increasingly run a phone, a laptop, a television, a console and a few smart devices off one router, and the congestion the Archer 8 is pitched at is a lived experience rather than a marketing abstraction.
Three years at the top of a reader-judged award is a meaningful run in a market where brands change position quickly. MyBroadband’s assessment weighs reputation and customer satisfaction alongside the spec sheet, so a repeat win suggests the reliability reputation has held rather than slipped. The company has framed the streak as evidence it keeps pace with what South African consumers want, and on the record of the past three years the judges have agreed with that reading.
What the award does not tell a buyer is which router to put in which house. It is a brand-level judgement, not a product test, and it says nothing about price on a given shelf or stock at a given retailer. Readers weighing an upgrade should treat it as a signal about the brand’s standing rather than a buying recommendation for one box.
The Wi-Fi 7 question is the one to watch. South Africa is still on Wi-Fi 6, and until local networks and devices move, the newer standard remains a promise rather than something a household can use. TP-Link being ready for that shift is worth noting, but readiness is not adoption, and no date for a wider local move to Wi-Fi 7 is set out in the company’s award material.
The Enquirer will keep tracking the local rollout of Wi-Fi 7 and what it costs South African buyers when it arrives.
Source: MyBroadband, How one company won the MyBroadband Best Networking Brand in South Africa award three years in a row
