{"id":644179,"date":"2026-04-29T11:08:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T09:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=644179"},"modified":"2026-04-29T11:17:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T09:17:34","slug":"199-mbps-in-a-nature-reserve-close-to-a-small-south-african-seaside-town-known-as-the-great-white-shark-capital-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadband\/644179-199-mbps-in-a-nature-reserve-close-to-a-small-south-african-seaside-town-known-as-the-great-white-shark-capital-of-the-world.html","title":{"rendered":"199 Mbps in a nature reserve close to a small South African seaside town known as the Great White Shark capital of the world"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MyBroadband achieved 199 Mbps in a nature reserve near the small seaside town of Gansbaai, demonstrating the exceptional mobile coverage in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Equally impressive was that the free Wi-Fi at the lodge in the nature reserve achieved consistent speeds above 30Mbps with latency of 10 ms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gansbaai is a small fishing town and tourist destination in the Overberg District Municipality, Western Cape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The town has a rich history. The Klipgat Cave, located in the Walker Bay Nature Reserve, provides early evidence of the presence of sheep-herding Khoi people in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1811, people of Khoi descent erected the first permanent settlement in the Gansbaai vicinity by building fishing cottages under the dense Milkwood Forests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early white settlers arrived in the 1700s as nomadic farmers, and by the 1800s, the rich marine life attracted permanent fishing activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modern Gansbaai was founded in 1881 by Johannes Cornelis Wessels, who discovered the area\u2019s fishing potential and a freshwater spring near the old harbour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially named Gansegat after local geese, it was later renamed Gansbaai. Life was tough, with locals heavily reliant on the sea\u2019s bounty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the early days, Gansbaai was a hub for commercial whaling. The industry thrived due to the abundance of southern right and humpback whales along the coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, overexploitation led to a sharp decline in whale populations, prompting the eventual cessation of whaling activities by the mid-20th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Gansbaai focuses on conservation and eco-tourism, with whale watching becoming a major attraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the mid-1990s, Gansbaai\u2019s main tourist attraction has been cage diving with great white sharks, attracting visitors from around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gansbaai became known as the home of the densest population of Great White Sharks in the world, making it a global hotspot for those interested in the species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The town also maintains a working-class charm centred around the Gansbaai Harbour, which supplies fresh fish daily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

199 Mbps in a nature reserve close to Gansbaai<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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MyBroadband recently visited Gansbaai and tested the Internet connectivity in the area. It was impressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We consistently achieved mobile speeds of 150 Mbps to 200 Mbps on Vodacom\u2019s LTE network, with peak speeds of 199\u00a0Mbps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latency on Vodacom\u2019s LTE network in and around Gansbaai was consistently between 18 ms and 19 ms, which is good enough for most applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Equally impressive was the fixed broadband connectivity at a lodge in a nature reserve eight kilometres from the town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is provided with wireless connectivity by a small local Internet service provider (ISP) called The Computer Hut<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Computer Hut has a range of fibre and wireless connectivity options in the Gansbaai region, starting at R350 per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the high-end, it offers 500 Mbps fibre packages and wireless packages with symmetrical 50 Mbps speeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the nature reserve and lodge were far from the town, they were served by a high-end wireless service. We achieved real-world download speeds of 30\u201340 Mbps, with a latency of 10\u201312 ms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The experience was in line with what you get from a fibre connection, making it suitable for gaming and other latency-sensitive services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The high speeds and low latency at a nature reserve close to a small seaside town show how far South Africa\u2019s broadband development has progressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It means that people can enjoy high broadband speeds in most remote areas in the country at affordable rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Computer Hut photos<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Gansbaai and surrounds photos<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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MyBroadband achieved 199 Mbps in a nature reserve near the small seaside town of Gansbaai, demonstrating the exceptional mobile coverage in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":644197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[104885,2490,104890,41],"class_list":["post-644179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadband","tag-gansbaai","tag-lte","tag-the-computer-hut","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644179"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":644227,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644179\/revisions\/644227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}