Hi guys, I saw this post and it was a strange but perfect coincidence! I have questions about the internet in SA. Anyways, I'm a full time (primary income) intraday trader from Chicago (only trade CL and ES) and I travel every summer for about 3-4 months around the world along with my system safely tucked away in a Pelican case and shipped via FedEx where ever I'm going. I was in Columbia (Medellin) and Europe all of last summer and did not have internet issues anywhere throughout my travels. This summer I am planning to visit (and work from) Cape Town for about a month for the first leg of my travels. I'm going to Airbnb it and stay primarily in Cape Town and explore the city. Since a bunch of you are from there I need to know what average speeds I can expect, any issues such as reliability (Cape Town is a big city but still, I have to be sure before I book my flights/airbnb, etc.) and any issues I might face as I am an intraday trader. I trade from 8-11 am EST and all positions are flat by 12 at the very latest. Reading through some of your posts, I am worried about delays and latency in orders/order placement, etc. I have never been to Africa and I really have my mind set on Cape Town but I need to be able to work from there. Any information would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks guys!

Hi Trader V. CT is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Hope you enjoy your stay. Fibre lines are in the process of being rolled out in the CT area. You have a bigger Fibre net work in the Gauteng (Johannesburg / Pretoria) area and whether you would be able to get Fibre line access would depend on whether that Airbnb is on the Fibre grid. Check out this link of a local ISP and see whether your area falls within the fibre grid - Having said that, remember that the Airbnb still needs to link to the fibre network. Just because they may be on the grid does not mean they are connected. If the area is not on the fibre grid you'll have to work on a ADSL (copper) line. Max speed for ADSL is about 10 mbps and for fibre 100 mbps+. Latency to Chicago servers is about 300ms. So if you scalp it will be an issue but if you take intraday positions you should be ok. I also access Chicago from my line in Pretoria as a ES Intraday trader with no problems. Depending on daylight savings you will trade from 15:30 to 18:00 or 16:30 till 19:00 local time.

Hope this helps. PS - Contact your Airbnb and ask them what type of internet they have (fibre or adsl) and what the speeds are and whether you can hook up your machine with a LAN. Tourism industry usually go out of their way to accommodate foreigners. All the best

I am an intraday scalper but a 300 ms delay shouldn't affect my trading too much, I've traded in much worse conditions. I designed and wrote macros for quick/automated order placement in Ninjatrader so that shaves off a lot of time when placing an order.