My buddy swore coffee shop wifi in Medellin was good enough for Zoom calls. He was dead wrong.

I followed his advice and showed up at this place in El Poblado with my laptop ready for a client call. The wifi cut out 3 times in 15 minutes and I had to hotspot off my phone which barely worked. Lost a $500 retainer because the client thought I was unprofessional. Now I always test the connection first with a speed test before booking any coworking spot for the day. Anyone else have a friend give them terrible digital nomad advice that backfired hard?

3 comments

3 Comments

clairem4722d ago

Wait did you try switching to a different network band or did it just die completely on you? I had basically the same thing happen in Buenos Aires and now I bring a portable travel router with me that lets me boost weak signals or create my own network if I need to. It's a pain to carry around but honestly it saved me a couple times when cafe wifi was garbage and I couldn't afford to miss another call. Before that I always checked wifi speed on my phone first but even that didn't catch random dropouts.

the_piper22d ago

Wait, how much of a hassle is it to set that thing up when you land somewhere? I heard you gotta mess with settings every time you switch networks and that just sounds exhausting after a long flight. I've been tempted to grab one but I'm worried I'll just leave it in my bag and never actually use it.

ryan_ellis20d ago

@the_piper Is it a hassle? Yeah, about as much hassle as trying to untangle earbuds after shoving them in a pocket for three hours. You gotta open the app, find the right network, punch in a password that you can barely read from the sticky counter at some airport cafe, and pray it works. I've watched guys spend ten minutes fiddling with settings while their coffee gets cold. I'd rather just use my phone hotspot and deal with the roaming charge.

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