I haven’t been able to find any posts on here about this but I had a quick question. I will be in Taiwan for the summer but will need to be teaching online classes and need high speed internet. The place I’m staying is NOT well served with high speed internet and I was wondering if anybody knows if it is possible to buy some sort of portable modem that gets unlimited or at least high fixed high speed internet for Zoom calls? Or would people recommend just getting a sim card to use as a hotspot. Cafes are not too feasible because I have to talk.
Thanks in advance…
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The first year or so I lived in Taiwan I simply used a SIM card in an android phone connected to my ASUS WLAN router. In most areas in or around cities (where will you be?) this should be by far fast and reliable enough for pretty much everything.
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Thanks for this point man, it seems like that’s probably the best way to go, and easiest I guess, if I can get a good fast SIM card plan.
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Second the SIM card – pretty easy to find a pre-paid unlimited plan with at least 30mb/s up/down (often better) for under $1000NTD/month.
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You can check Zoom Bandwidth requirements and test the internet speed of your place
Also , check if your Laptop , PC , Tablet… has the processor and RAM requirements
Source and more info :
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362023-System-Requirements-for-PC-Mac-and-Linux#bandwidth
Additional Info that can be helpful
( Source : Columbia University )
Working from Home: WiFi/Network Considerations
Internet Speed (Bandwidth) Concerns for Zoom/Remote Work:
- “Bandwidth” refers generally to the maximum rate at which data can be transferred over a network. With respect to home internet service, the bandwidth you pay for from your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is always a maximum, and not necessarily your actual obtained speed. Many internet plans have different “downstream” and “upstream” speeds. Downstream is data that is download from the internet to your device. Upstream is data that is uploaded from your device to the Internet. In an application like Zoom, downstream data will include the video and audio of all other participants in the meeting, while upstream data will be your own video and audio stream which is sent through the network to Zoom.
- You may check your effective bandwidth at Speedtest.net or Fast.com (it can be helpful to compare the two).
- Do I need faster internet to use Zoom? Zoom is very flexible when it comes to bandwidth – visit the Zoom bandwidth requirements page – and recommends upstream connection speeds of 1.5-3.0Mbps for optimal performance in group meetings with HD video quality. If your connection speed drops below these thresholds, your video quality will be automatically adjusted to keep you in the meeting. Most home internet packages are at least 25Mbps downstream/5Mbps upstream, and your home internet package should be at least 10Mbps down/5Mbps up in order to use Zoom effectively. Keep in mind that there is a difference between what you pay your ISP for, and what you receive – you are not guaranteed to receive the full speeds that you pay for. If there is a large discrepancy between your effective speed (tested with the above sites) and the speed you pay for, please reach out to your ISP.
- How much bandwidth do I need? A&S recommends that your internet package from your ISP be ~25Mbps downstream and 5Mbps upstream for one individual. If your network has multiple individuals working from home or family members who are engaged in distance learning, then this may necessitate a faster package from your ISP. Please use the speed tests above as a gauge to determine what your speeds are like during the work day. Please also keep in mind that increasing your downstream internet speeds from 100Mbps to 400Mbps is very unlikely to impact the quality of your Zoom experience. Zoom only uses ~3.0Mbps for HD video and audio.
- Most home internet speeds far exceed the downstream requirements for Zoom. If you can stream Netflix, you can use Zoom successfully.
- If you have a WiFi router, always try to position yourself as close to the router as you possibly can. This will ensure that you have full signal strength, and will limit the impact of any WiFi interference that may be degrading your connection speed.
- We have received reports of Zoom struggling under heavy load during the workday. You can check the current network status of Zoom to see if you are experiencing a known issue. Please note that this site may not list all issues. When there is network congestion, users will typically see degraded or frozen/choppy video feeds. Audio is typically not affected or must less affected. In situations where Zoom is the bottleneck, please understand that you will have limited ability to improve the situation – you may need to have a plan to adjust your teaching strategy or reschedule an administrative meeting if connection quality is very low or unstable.
- For non-Zoom Work From Home scenarios: in most web-based applications, connection speed is not a pressing concern. A faster connection may make pages load or respond more quickly and feel more responsive, but is not required for effective home work scenarios. PAC, ARC, FDS, CUIT VPN, etc., do not require fast internet connections as they transmit very little data. Almost all processing is done on the server (e.g., Columbia) end of the connection – slowness in ARC, for example, while validating budgets is not a function of one’s internet speed. This is directly related to the complexity of the operations being performed on the ARC servers. Likewise, LionMail and Outlook transmit very little data and do not require fast connections.
- Remote Desktop Connections to an on-campus PC do not have substantial bandwidth requirements, and these requirements are lower than those for Zoom. A stable Remote Desktop Connection to an on-campus PC can require as little as 200Kbps (not Mbps) upstream/downstream.
In-home WiFi Routers
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If you lease/rent your WiFi router from your Internet Service Provider (ISP) – It is very common for in-home routers to be leased from your ISP (Comcast, Spectrum, FiOS, etc.). In such cases, please contact your Internet Service Provider directly about issues with your in-home WiFi, as they often have remote management tools that allow them to assess the status of your home network remotely. If your equipment is misconfigured, or if there is an issue with your leased hardware, your ISP will be best positioned to assist you with fixing the issue or with replacing your equipment.
- It can be a non-trivial procedure to use your own WiFI router in conjunction with the equipment provided by your ISP – your first course of actions should be to contact the ISP right away with your connectivity questions and concerns. ISP WiFi routers typically combine the functionality of a modem (which communicates with the internet) and WiFi router (which communicates between your computer and the modem then, in turn, the internet), so you should consult with your ISP before purchasing your own equipment.
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Consumer WiFi routers (which are purchased outright, rather than leased from an ISP) vary widely in quality. If you are experiencing slowness or instability in your connection, even when your computer is located close to the WiFi router itself, you may want to try rebooting your router. To do so, unplug the power cable from the router for 30 seconds then plug it back in and allow it to reboot.
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If you wish to purchase a new WiFi router resolve home internet speeds, please first check with your ISP to verify that there are not issues on their end (rather than with your router). Please also use the above resources to check your actual current internet speeds – different sites will perform differently based upon the network load, so Zoom slowness does not automatically imply that your connection is slow or unstable.
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If you do determine that you need a new in-home WiFi router, please consider the below models. The first two are recommended by CUIT for on-campus housing (more information here), and the latter models are general recommendations for stable and high quality routers.
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For installation of routers in CUIT-serviced locations, please contact CUIT for in-home or phone based support. For installation in off-campus housing, please consult the manufacturer’s installation instructions.
https://fas.columbia.edu/home/contingency-planning/working-home-wifinetwork-considerations
Umm, thanks for all the day, I really appreciate it…I do know just by experience that the place where I will be has crap internet…its provided by the apartment building and the walls are so thick, I think this is why, the signal doesn’t go from one room to another…now maybe this is the router and when I get back there I will see, but good to know.
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Wow man, thanks for this link and for the info that’s incredibly cheap, I appreciate the help.
As far as I can tell that’s for 2GB, not “all you can eat”
Ok, thanks for pointing that out, I thought that was too good to be true, I don’t read Chinese…it would be nice to know a brand/company that offers good deals, but this is a great starting point.
The lower ones have a soft cap of 2-12 GB. They are unlimited but slowed down after reaching the small cap.
$388 is the true unlimited with no throttling.
But these are for a 24 month contract.
GT4G has a no contract option. $288 for unlimited 21 mbps.
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It’s a speed reduction to 12M after the first 2GB.
Oh. That’s good then… almost too good to be true 
I use it for IoT stuff when I want a remote device to always have a connection. So far so good.
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Thanks a lot for this info, really appreciate it…certainly the 24 month contract doesn’t work but the no contract option is great, how can it be so cheap, I’m assuming that’s NT 288?
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Yes of course. All prices in Taiwan use the TWD.
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This APTG or GT Life seems interesting, specifically their unlimited 21Mbps at $288 without a subscription. Does anybody have an educated guess about what they would do if I put that SIM into a router and used it as a home system? What if I planned to upload or download 2-3TB / month? Would they even care?
I would be happy to get rid of home ADSL. I have one of the cheaper home ADSL options and it sucks. I feel they squeeze the traffic to make it unusable to encourage people to migrate to a higher bandwidth option. I know I do not need more than the most basic throughput, but I suspect ISPs in general of artificially bottle-necking specific types of traffic, especially games. Or maybe their bandwidth is just super oversubscribed at peak times.
I wonder whether moving from a basic ADSL to basic SIM would be a step up or not.
I am hoping that this type of oversubscription is not as common on the 4G network, since people would notice it much sooner on their phones.
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I’m just thinking I can use it in my iPad and do zoom calls that way, not too concerned with streaming or torrenting while I’m there but I wonder how this will just handle the Zoom things, look forward to trying it out when I’m out of quarantine…is it even possible to use a sim in a router?
They won’t.
I would first ensure you have decent enough coverage. Wired is still more stable.
You’re free to call them or enter a store to ask for a test SIM card for a few days.
If it is supported.