Warning: don't trust Costa Rica coliving WiFi even if they say it's fast

I booked a month at a place in Manuel Antonio that promised "gigabit fiber" on their website. Day one I sat down to join a video call with my dental supply rep and the connection dropped 6 times in 20 minutes. Turns out they had one router for the whole building and 14 people working at the same time. I ended up buying a local SIM card for $30 and using my phone as a hotspot for the rest of the trip. Has anyone else run into coliving spaces lying about their internet speeds?

2 comments

2 Comments

luna_green21d ago

Hotel style setups are the real problem - they route everyone through one public IP so your Zoom packets get stuck behind 13 Netflix streams no matter how fast the line technically is. It's the shared infrastructure that breaks everything, not the promised speed.

the_thomas21d ago

Yeah the "gigabit fiber" thing is such a joke. I was at a place in Medellin that said the same thing and it turned out the whole building was sharing one 50mbps line with like 20 people. I mean maybe it's just me but I always bring a backup hotspot now after that.