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Hot take: I booked a place in Medellin for a month without checking the internet speed
The listing said 'fast wifi' but it was barely 5 Mbps, so I had to work from a cafe every day for 3 weeks. Has anyone else gotten burned by a bad internet promise, and how do you check now?
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wendy_jackson1mo ago
That "fast wifi" label is basically meaningless now, like "all natural" on food. Companies just slap it on because they know people need it. You really have to dig for actual speed tests in the reviews.
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wendy_jackson1mo ago
5 Mbps is almost unusable for anything beyond email, I remember back in 2017 when I stayed in a place in Buenos Aires that claimed "high speed fiber" and it was 2 Mbps max. Took me three days just to upload a single video for work. I don't totally blame the hosts though, sometimes the internet in these countries is just unreliable and they don't actually know what good speed looks like. I check by looking for recent reviews that mention specific speeds like "25 Mbps" or "50 Mbps" and I look for people who say they worked from there. Also I ask the host directly for a speed test screenshot before I book, and if they get weird about it I move on.
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paigep201mo ago
Yeah the "fast wifi" thing is such a gamble. My friend had the same issue in Lisbon, the host swore it was good but it kept dropping during her calls. She ended up having to ask neighbors if she could use theirs.
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