Spent a month in Medellin and the wifi was brutal

I stayed in El Poblado last month and my $30 Airbnb had internet that dropped every 20 minutes. The host blamed the building's old wiring but I saw fiber optic lines on the street outside. Anyone else run into this in Colombian cities or did I just pick a bad spot?

2 comments

2 Comments

henry_palmer241mo ago

I used to think the whole "Colombia's internet is fine" thing was just people being dramatic. But you saying the wifi dropped every 20 minutes really hit home. Last year I stayed in Laureles in Medellin and had the exact same problem. $25 Airbnb, fiber optic lines right on the pole outside, but inside the apartment it was like dial-up from 2005. The landlord told me it was the building's copper wiring too. It made me realize a lot of these older buildings just aren't wired for modern speeds, no matter what's on the street.

aaron6771mo ago

Yeah my buddy moved to Bogota last year for work and had the same nightmare. He paid for the fastest fiber package you could get from one of the big providers. But his apartment building was like 40 years old with copper lines that looked straight out of the 90s. He'd be on a Zoom call with his boss back in the States and the thing would freeze every 10 minutes. The landlord finally admitted they'd never upgraded the internal wiring and basically said "that's not my problem." He ended up getting a mobile hotspot with a data plan just to work from the rooftop where the signal was better.