A listing that says "fast wifi" tells you nothing. Two minutes with a free speed test tells you whether you can work there, and it's worth doing before you pay for a month or settle in for the morning.
The two minute test
- Move to where you'd actually sit. A reading next to the router means nothing if your desk is two rooms away.
- Turn off VPNs and cloud sync so you measure the line rather than your own uploads.
- Run fast.com and open "show more info" to see upload, or use Speedtest.
- Note download, upload and latency. Write them down, because you'll forget by tomorrow.
- Run it again a minute later. One good result proves very little.
What the numbers mean
- For calls and normal work, aim for at least 20 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up.
- Upload is the number listings leave out. Many lines in Asia are asymmetric, and your side of a video call depends on it.
- Latency under about 50 ms feels instant. Past 150 ms, people start talking over each other on calls.
The test speed tests miss
Speed tests measure a few seconds of a good moment. Stability is what ruins your day. Join a video call with a friend for five minutes, or leave a ping running in a terminal with ping 1.1.1.1 and watch for dropped packets and sudden jumps. Then repeat the speed test in the evening, because a shared building can look fine at 10am and fall over at 8pm when everyone starts streaming.
Testing before you arrive
For a rental, ask the host to send a screenshot of a speed test from the room you'll work in, with the date visible. Good hosts do this without fuss. A host who sends you the router's advertised speed instead has told you what you needed to know.
Have a plan B
Keep a data eSIM active so your phone can act as a hotspot when the wifi drops mid call. The full setup is in how to get reliable internet anywhere, and a travel router helps in places with weak signal or awkward login pages.