I have spent several months working remotely from different cities in Mexico, and haven’t had any major problems so far. It has felt no different to me than working remotely in the US.
Granted, most of the time I have been in larger cities, where the infrastructure is better. I have also been mostly in AirBnBs, where there is usually a dedicated router, and hosts have a vested interest in providing good wifi. I do that by design, since it’s a priority for me to have good reliable internet for my work. Unfortunately, many smaller beach towns and more remote places in Mexico still have spotty internet.
The lowest speed I have seen was about 15Mbps, and on average I would say it has been about 30Mbps. I have seen speeds in multiple places as high as 160Mbps. Sometimes AirBnB hosts use the wifi speed feature in their listing, but not as much as I would like. On a few occasions I have written to ask in advance before booking. Hosts are usually pretty good about getting back with that information.
My job does not require super high internet speeds, but I do have quite a few meetings on Teams or Zoom. I work for an international company that deals with sensitive information, and initially I was worried that there might be issues connecting via the VPN. But I haven’t had any issues other than once or twice when I was trying to work from a coffee shop.
Working Outdoors
Pictures of a laptop by the pool or with a beautiful vista behind it are the typical digital nomad image. I usually prefer to work inside though. It is typically cooler and easier to see the screen, and the internet connection is better as well. When I do spend time working on a patio or by the pool, I make sure to bring my cap. I find it much easier to see the screen if I pull the visor down to where it obscures any glare coming over the top of the lid.
Troubleshooting Bad or Slow Connections
In an AirBnB there is often more than one network you can join. If the name is the same but ends with ‘5G’, try and use that one. It will usually be faster.
I also keep an ethernet cable with a USB-C adapter with me. If the wifi signal is weak, I can plug directly into the router and usually have a much faster and more stable connection.