I found a weird trick to get a solid wifi signal in a cafe in Medellin by using a specific VPN server in Miami, but my friend says that's just a fluke and you should always just find a new spot.

After 3 weeks of spotty video calls, I forced my VPN to connect through Miami instead of auto-select and my upload speed jumped from 2 Mbps to a steady 15 Mbps at the same cafe, so is routing traffic through a specific city a legit fix or did I just get lucky that one time?

3 comments

3 Comments

spencery681mo ago

Check if the VPN server in Miami is on the same backbone network as the cafe's ISP. Sometimes a specific route just avoids a bad local internet exchange point.

the_viola11d ago

Oh man, talking about backbone networks and route tables makes my head spin! I just want my coffee and a website that loads. It feels like we need a network wizard, not a barista, to fix the wifi in there. Maybe the router just hates that particular VPN and is being stubborn about it. Honestly, sometimes tech just has a bad day for no reason we can figure out.

ray_martinez1mo ago

Hey @spencery68, what if the cafe's router itself has a weird route table messing things up?