Richmond Achieves 117Mbps Mobile Speed – and then – the Books

June 23, 2026 1

183-year-old village known as South Africa’s Book Town achieves 117 Mbps mobile speed.

For this report, MyBroadband Insights used data collected through the MyBroadband Android speed test app.

By Staff Writer – My Broadband.

Richmond, a small Karoo town in the Northern Cape Province, achieved an average mobile speed of 117 Mbps on MTN’s network. This was revealed in the Q1 2026 MyBroadband Insights research report about the average mobile network speeds in South Africa.

Between 1 January 2026 and 31 March 2026, there were 316,000 performance tests performed on the Android Speed Test app. It showed that the average mobile download speed in South Africa in Q1 2026 was 80 Mbps, and the average upload speed was 19 Mbps. MTN achieved average download speeds of 117 Mbps, average upload speeds of 20 Mbps, and an average latency of 36 ms.

All of these tests were performed on MTN’s 4G network, which shows its strong performance on key benchmarks. Other networks also performed strongly in

Richmond. Telkom had an average download speed of 98 Mbps, followed by Vodacom at 81 Mbps and Cell C at 65 Mbps. Considering that Richmond is located in the heart of the Karoo, between Colesberg and Beaufort West, this performance is exceptional. The download speeds align with what most households with fibre connectivity in South Africa experience and, shows South Africa’s quality network infrastructure, which supports such a strong performance in a rural town.

The table below shows the performance of South Africa’s mobile networks in Richmond in Q1 2026.

More about Richmond

Richmond is small town in the central Karoo of the Northern Cape, with a population of just over 5,000.

The Karoo town in South Africa’s inland plateau was established in 1843 to meet the religious needs of a growing farming community.

It has many well-preserved houses and public buildings of Victorian and Edwardian Karoo style, with additions of verandahs dating from the 1920s. The town became known as South Africa’s Book Town and is a destination for bibliophiles, featuring many second-hand bookstores. It also hosts the Boekbedonnerd Festival that attracts authors, poets, and book collectors from across the country.

The annual Booktown Festival has become a favourite for collectors of rare Africana titles and a rich variety of books encompassing everything from natural history subjects to architecture, cooking, travel, biographies and autobiographies and works of fiction.

A number of Victorian era cottages have been joined together to form one of the largest second-hand bookshops in South Africa. Many happy hours can be spent browsing through the huge variety of books and the collection of Africana titles for sale will keep the avid collector engrossed and enthused.

The Richmond Ramble is a designated tourist trail through the village which highlights the rich variety of architectural gems, shops, museums, historical sights, atmospheric coffee shops and restaurants.

Richmond seems to be a fascinating town. Visit the links below for more information on all it has to offer.

A number of resources were used for the information on the town itself. See references below.

https://mybroadband.co.za/news/broadband/638042-183-year-old-village-known-as-south-africas-book-town-achieves-117-mbps-mobile-speed.html

https://www.karoo-southafrica.com/eastern-upper-karoo/richmond/

Written by: Mike Stroud

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