Staying for the week at an AirBnB in Rochester, MN. This is what I just found out I'm stuck with.

Hope you enjoy reading these comments in 3-5 days

So you spent your whole vacation uploading this picture???

Ok I have an amount of experience with basically everything going on here so here's what you should do:

First, find the listing and see if they have WiFi listed as an amenity. If they do great, you can complain to Airbnb as a last resort. If they don't you can't, which honestly probably isn't going to change much unless they are turds.

Second, do a few speed tests around the house, especially next to the other duplex unit. On the Airbnb app, send a screenshot of them and say something to the effect of "hey we noticed the Internet is slow, are you having issues too?"

Either they never checked if the downstairs WiFi and there's no signal, or there's a problem with the Internet and they need to call the company. Both are pretty viable. Does your phone say 75% signal or -75db? -75db is not great, but 75% should be ok. If you get faster speeds near the other unit it's likely their WiFi.

The other option is they have issues too. Fixed wireless can run into issues when things change like radar frequencies. They can call the company and get it fixed pretty quick. Even if they aren't paying for the faster speeds the ping shouldn't be anywhere near 600ms. Like, I lived with wireless internet for a long while and it's slow or shouldn't be that painfully slow.

Don't just suffer through, often people don't mention this kind of stuff and if the hosts aren't on top of their tech they don't know it's an issue. There was an issue with the Wi-Fi firmware on a unit I do work for and the guests only mentioned it at the end of their month long stay. They should be willing to work with you especially if they advertise wifi but honestly probably even if they don't. Like, just don't be an ass about it and they'll probably be pretty accommodating.

You're in the wrong Rochester!

Come to rural Canada. Our internet is slower, but at least it's three times more expensive.

This is your ISP's pricing list:

https://www.radiolinkinternet.com/Plans.html

$55

15mbps down / 5mbps up

$65

22mbps down / 7mbps up

$85

30mbps down / 10mbps up

Call

-other speeds up to 1000mbps Wireless are available-

They're a rural fixed wireless provider. I don't understand why they would try to serve the middle of the town.

I would personally consider getting a refund, but the hotels there aren't that much better for speeds. The city /does/ have good internet access available, i don't understand why nobody purchases it :(

meanwhile random residential internet speeds in tokyo beating out every consumer connection available in my area (and country I assume):

I have 250Mbit/s in a really old building within a small to medium size town in Germany

It'd be faster to mail the TCP packets via USPS

How bad is this to use? 5 Mbps isn't awful to use but that ping concerns me, high pings in my experience are worse than slow speeds in a lot of cases (gaming, browsing, chat etc.)

My solution to crappy internet while traveling (not a solution to the present moment):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09N72FMH5
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XXBQPZL

My phone provider (GoogleFi) allows you to get a free data-only SIM for your account. I put that into the ZTE USB dongle thing, and plug that into the mini router. That router can be powered by a USB battery bank, or your phone's USB-C charger, or a wall plug. It then gives you your own OpenWRT router you can use wirelessly, or via a CAT-5. I have unlimited data, so I don't get charged extra. I have the router setup with Wireguard into my house as well, so I can get adblocking through the router as well. It's all very compact/portable. I just used it on a road trip, plugged into my car's USB port, and my son streamed Netflix on his tablet.

I have also used that USB dongle directly into my Linux laptop, and it was plug-and-play as well (bypassing the need for the router).

edit: basically it's an over-engineered dedicated hotspot, but I'm a geek and like to over-do things

Ya. Most vacation rentals will have Internet like this. They don't want you pirating or downloading potentially illegal materials.

It's enough to watch Netflix and Google shit and that's about it.

That’s what you get for going to America’s second best Rochester.

That being said, people don’t normally go there for good reasons. Hope you’re healthy

My office is at about 1 mbs with RTO. I feel your pain friend

at least there's internet

you'll be fine. I played WoW in the early 2000s with these Internet speeds.

Wow, that's almost as fast as my phone's hotspot!!

On the one hand, this is normally fine at an Airbnb because you should be on vacation and thus out and doing stuff.

On the other hand, you're in Rochester, MN, and I'd imagine the main reason people would get an AirBNB there is to be near family who are inpatient, so the hosts should be catering to that...

The ISP I work for provides residential gigabit fiber to Rochester, so I know it's definitely not a problem of availability

the access point is probably upstairs and blocked by several objects

These are the speeds the ISP advertises:

https://www.radiolinkinternet.com/Plans.html

I don't know much about WISP but I suspect speed will vary based on distance and line of site to towers and how congested they are.

Perhaps they could be using a VLan?

If indeed the service is provided by "Radio Link Internet" as listed in your screenshot, the owner can likely fix the speed to "better" with a single phone call RIGHT NOW with the $30 more per month subscription fee to the $85 30mbps down / 10mbps up instead of what they're probably on the $55 service plan.

Judging from the info on your screenshot this looks like this is a WISP. Meaning if you go outside the building there is likely a small tower with an antenna on it that is aimed parallel to the ground. In the days of ISDN, these were amazingly better. In the days of fiber or even Starlink these are pretty abysmal.

Is the signal strength really low?

Looks like my 4G LTE speeds I get on my phone at work

I'm nearby rochester and used to have radiolink. Honestly you're lucky it works. Never had a worse experience with an isp before

Mother Mayo won't let the people living here have nice things. All infrastructure funding must go to the hospital so they can stay one the top medical centers in the world, while the city around them crumbles. Everything goes to the Destination Medical Center.

I’m guessing the problem is that the access point in some terrible location or on another floor. When signal first through Sheetrock it loses half its signal strength or 15/16 loss of going through concrete

I would do my impression of a dialup modem but can't convey those sounds.

Is this the ISP saying "you may experience speeds up to" and then gives you this?

Can you plug in? May be better.

Pretty sure that's against the Geneva Convention.

I both love and hate that app because it has shown me how absolutely abysmal cellular speeds are at "peak" hours (which recently has expanded to most of the waking hours). Some days the test can't even progress because the towers (I'm guessing) are so congested with other people trying to enjoy their lunch break. On the other hand, I love seeing the 5G-UW pop up on the phone and getting 2gb download speeds. I don't see it often enough.

.

QoS maybe?