Why does nobody talk about how much a bad wifi router kills your income?

I was working from a cafe in Medellin last month and kept getting dropped from client calls, so I blamed the cafe wifi like always. Then my Airbnb host swapped out the old router for a $40 TP-Link and suddenly my upload speed went from 2 Mbps to 60 Mbps overnight. I had been losing about 3 hours a week waiting for files to sync for almost a year, and it never once crossed my mind that the router was the problem. Now I check the router model before I book any monthly stay. Anyone else add this to their vetting list, or am I just lucky it was the cheap fix?

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robinson.quinn23d ago

Did you ever stop to think that the router was the weak link before you swapped it out? I used to roll my eyes when people blamed their gear instead of the wifi itself, mainly because I always figured slow speeds were just part of the deal in places with spotty internet. Then I stayed at a spot where the host had one of those old routers from like 2015 and my video calls were garbage for two weeks straight. He changed it to a cheap newer one and the difference was night and day, same plan, same location, nothing else changed. That is when it clicked for me that the router is doing way more work than I ever gave it credit for. Now I ask about the router model before I book, same as you, and I have walked away from places that could not tell me what they had.

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