A remote worker’s guide to getting fast internet in Puerto Escondido
By: Austin Lo
Tags: Puerto Escondido, Remote Work, Mexico, Digital Nomads

Most of the online resources out there on Puerto Escondido will caution you against trying to work remotely from here. While it’s not a cake walk, it’s completely manageable, and with the right setup, is entirely doable.

There are very few requirements to being able to productively work remote and the biggest one that gets brought up again and again with Puerto is the speed and stability of the internet connections.

You can read other more tourist-centered guides for the sights and eats around Puerto Escondido. I’ve been running Peek from Puerto Escondido for a month now and here are some of my notes on finding fast internet (and maybe a place to work) in Puerto. There have been some recent changes (for the better) and this guide is based entirely on my own speed tests in December 2020 / January 2021.

Unlike major cities in Mexico, fast, reliable internet isn’t a given here. None of the cafes that I tested in La Punta or Zicatela had a connection strong enough for a video call, and most hostels have a single router with a Telcel (LTE) connection shared between a ton of people. That said, you do have a few options:

Buy a Telcel SIM

Most US cell carriers now support eSIM, so with an iPhone 11 or 12, you can use the SIM slot in your phone for a foreign SIM and be able to simultaneously use both carriers. Telcel is the carrier with the best coverage in Puerto Escondido. Nobody else comes close. Just go to an OXXO and ask for a “Telcel chip” — it should set you back ~40 pesos and you can even have the cashier load it up for you. The good news is that data plans here are relatively cheap. 200 pesos (~$10 US) got me 5GB of data. The bad news is that speeds vary tremendously. After a daylong outage in December, I suspect they did some upgrades to the tower in El Centro. At an apartment just across the street from the tower, the connection was consistently between 50–80Mbps upload and download. However, it can be as low as 2–3Mbps down by the beach. As somewhat of a rule of thumb, the closer to the highway you are, the faster connection you can get.

Find an AirBnB with Telmex Fiber

If you need gobs of bandwidth, and/or need to download loads of data, this is your best option. Telmex just started rolling out fiber optic internet in Puerto Escondido with 150–200Mbit speeds, but each neighborhood is limited in the number of connections it is able to support. Of the 30 or so AirBnBs I inquired at, a couple of them had fiber connections. Ask the host if they have “Telmex Infinitum” connection.

Casa Losodeli

It’s a small coworking space (maybe 8 spots) which was booked up both times I tried to go. 20Mbit connection, although I couldn’t tell if anyone was doing any video calls or bandwidth intensive work when I tested it. Not a bad option if you want a desk / don’t want to get a SIM and are in El Centro. No A/C, but it’s a well shaded area.

The “not so great” options

Selina

A cramped coworking space which is frequently fully booked. They oversell the slots frequently and many people just pay for 1 day and then keep using the WiFi password, so the connection speed varies wildly and I was never able to get enough to hold a stable video call.. The cafe/bar area also becomes pretty packed with remote workers and they’ll occasionally try to charge you 150 pesos just to use the slower (3–4Mbit) cafe WiFi. Most days they also have the music cranked way up, making a call impossible and noise-cancelling headphones necessary. Despite the image as a cowork/colive brand, it’s a miserable place to work.

Restaurants

For the most part, only the larger restaurants or places attached to a hotel have WiFi available. It’s rarely fast. Some of them have idyllic views, and nobody ever gave me much trouble for camping out with a laptop, but it’s best to BYO connection.

The one big caveat

When the internet goes out, landline and cell providers tend to go out simultaneously. Talking to people who’ve been around Puerto a bit longer than I have, this tends to happen once every month or two. If you’re in a real pinch, there are a handful of places with satellite internet connections in Puerto, including one hostel (Bonita Escondida). These connections won’t be fast enough to do a video call, and the latency makes audio calls very difficult, but you’ll at least be able to reschedule your meetings and fire off a few emails.