Ins and outs of Internet

Welcome to Casa Chango Mexico. We are located in Puerto Escondido, Mexico, a fast growing town that is known for surfing and beautiful beaches. We are pleased to announce that we have Starlink satellite internet which works very well most of the time. Feel free to do your own research about Starlink’s ins and outs.

The following info is meant to get you acquainted with the quirks of our internet and help prepare you for a positive experience using the internet while you are visiting Casa Chango.

Our advice to you if you rely on internet daily for work, school, or any other reason

Before coming to Mexico

  1. Notify your work, friends, family, clients, students, and teachers about your upcoming travel and the realities of your internet.
  2. Order a mobile hotspot or put unlimited data on your phone.
    1. A hotspot generally works better than using data on a phone.
      Some of our previous guests recommend GlocalMe G4 which they say works well and has two SIM card slots. This way you can buy a local sim card and switch between the two within the device if one goes down. A more detailed review is here.  This is for when the wifi is very slow due to many people using it at the same time or bad weather.
    2. If you decide not to bring a hotspot, you can use your phone data as a personal hotspot. You can either bring a data plan from your local provider on your phone that will work as a personal hotspot on your computer, or you can bring an unlocked cell phone so you can purchase a Mexican SIM card data plan.
      • If you are bringing data from outside Mexico, make sure it will be usable in Mexico. We suggest bringing an unlimited data plan.
      • New devices will operate on the 4G band. An old enough device (or one that lets you pick your band) will use 3G which is less ‘crowded.’ We recommend the Motorola Moto G, which you can pick up on ebay. 
  3. Download / or use a tool that tells you how much data you are using and track it for a week. We recommend BitMeterOS.  This will teach you how much data you use in the course of a workday and give you a sense of which functions of your job you might want to schedule / plan to do at strange hours if the WiFi is not good. Look at it frequently to learn about the data demand of a zoom call, uploading files to a shared server, or even downloading files. 
  4. If you rely on video/zoom meetings for your job, set yourself up for success by creating alternatives such as calling in to meetings on your phone or pre-recording classes for your students, just in case.

When you arrive

  1. When you arrive to Casa Chango, you can connect your devices to our network.
  2. If you decide to buy a local data plan, figure out which Telcel plan you want to purchase on the Telcel website, and you can have an adventure to town to buy one. We recommend the biggest amigo sin limite paquete available at 500 or higher.
  3. We invite you to relax and know that everything is going to be ok. You have chosen to visit Mexico and we invite you to experience a slower, more relaxed lifestyle. It is just an opportunity to practice patience and calm when things don’t work out as planned. All will be ok.

Using a Mexican Telcel SIM card ‘chip’

Internet Quirks

Internet is less strong when there are many people trying to use the same router at once.
We ask our guests to close all windows that they are not currently using in order to make the internet stronger for people while they are working.

Tip: To avoid dropping in and out of big meetings, you can use the feature on Microsoft Teams that lets you call into meetings from your phone. Having this as a backup will be great for when the wifi is slower than usual.

Uploads & Downloads

In general, the time of day that you do your uploads and downloads is key.  You should do your big file uploads/downloads in the morning before most people are awake. 
If you are able to use something like Box sync or break up your audio files that will probably help. You should use something that will pause the upload if the the internet is iffy and resume it when the internet comes back without losing the progress, or just upload lots of smaller files.  If your uploads aren’t usually super time specific, you’ll be just fine.
You can also start your uploads just before you go to sleep and they should be done by the time you wake up.   If you aren’t downloading/uploading anything bigger than 4G you should be okay as long as you do the downloads at the times of day that the internet is best.  Worst case it might take you 48 hours to get a big download done.

Zoom Meetings

Video calls including zoom generally work well with Starlink internet, but can be a challenge because they require the largest bandwidth of internet. In general, our internet supports zoom calls with the occasional 2-10 second bumps. If you rely on zoom for the work/study you plan to do while you are here, we recommend having a data back up in case there are many people using the internet at the time of your meeting. In addition you can look for an alternative such as calling into meetings on your phone or pre-recording classes for your students.

General speeds

Casa Chango Starlink wifi: 
Ping: 69ms-359ms
Download: 79 Mbps-248 Mbps
Upload: 7 Mbps- 17 Mbps

Hotspot:
Ping: 41ms – 107ms
Download: 4 Mbps – 13 Mbps
Upload: 2 Mbps – 19 Mbps

When Cellular Tower ‘goes out’

About once every 4-8 weeks, the cellular tower ‘goes out’ for 2-6 hours.  When this happens, there is no cellular service at all until the tower comes back which generally takes about 2-3 hours, but sometimes takes as long as 6 hours.  What that means no calls, no texts, no emails can be made.  Good news is that Starlink still works! So you can contact your work, school, and loved ones using the Starlink internet.

If you have any questions, you can email us at SweetRetreatsdr@gmail.com.
We are happy to help.

We look forward to seeing you soon!