

Remote work, outside the US [sucks?] - uptownhr

I&#x27;m a web developer, and for the longest time, I&#x27;ve dreamed about working remotely while traveling from country to country. Recently I went on a short vacation to china and attempted to work  .<p>Now, I know China may be an exception but in my opinion, this is not a country a web developer can work remotely. You&#x27;re hands are tied behind your back with blind folds on. Internet through mobile is widely available, but speed is normally capped at edge speeds(56k). Then there&#x27;s the bigger problem of censorship. Google, facebook, twitter, and tons more are blocked.<p>VPN you say? Before, I left I did setup my own vpn server on Digital ocean and tested before leaving. Now, I need to investigate this further when I return but it is not 100%. I can&#x27;t say why, but I&#x27;ve ran into many connectivity issue trying to surf through the VPN. Having to deal with reconnecting and timing out a lot. Might be due to poor internet connectivity in general. Also on the mobile, I haven&#x27;t figured out how to tunnel traffic through VPN. Another thing I should research.<p>When internet is not fast, I do not feel like using it. As a developer, browsing, googling are things you do 90% of the time. More than coding.<p>How do you guys handle remote work in other countries with censorship and generally slow speeds?
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gorachel007
Working remotely from anywhere can be great, you just have to research the
setup before you go and be prepared.

I've worked remotely from Oregon, Seattle, Singapore, Tokyo and Manila (where
I am now). None of the cities except Manila caused any problems once you get
around the time zone issue. The Internet in the Philippines is generally slow
(averaging 1 mbps) and expensive. I'm not sure if this is due to
infrastructure or a monopoly or something, but it's tough to work with a slow,
expensive connection especially when you're a web developer.

I manage it by working late at night or early in the morning, when the
connection seems to be faster (less people are awake and online). I also keep
two different connections handy--one is my mobile data, which I can hotspot
and use on my computer, and the other is a portable broadband device. That
way, even if one of them loses connection (did I mention in addition to it
being slow and expensive, the Internet is unreliable???) I can still work
using the other one.

Even with the awful Internet I still get things done in Manila, and if it's
possible here it's possible anywhere.

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wrd
I was just in Manila a couple of weeks ago and found the Internet to be
infuriating. I could simply not find a place with decent Internet. Even the
mobile Internet was terrible. I left Manila and one point and went to a
remote-ish island and got faster mobile Internet there than I did in Manila.

From my understanding, the reason for the slow speed is both infrastructure
and business. Apparently all traffic in the Philippines is routed through
California or something weird like that. On top of that, Filipino telecoms are
corrupt and have little incentive to provide good service.

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~~~
uptownhr
HAHA, yes I agree. I am a part of the community.

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wrd
Internet is going to be spotty all over Asia unless you're in South Korea. The
only reliable trick I've found is to find a local coworking space that caters
to the tech startup scene. Typically these spaces have good, reliable
Internet.

Otherwise, to deal with the censorship and monitoring VPN is the way to go.

