Cost me 6 hours to figure out my SIM card was 4G only in Taipei

Landed in Taipei last month, first time working from there. Got a local SIM at the airport, popped it in, and my laptop tethering was painfully slow. I blamed the hostel wifi, blamed my VPN, even blamed the weather. Turns out the SIM was 4G only and my phone defaults to 5G bands. Switched the network mode manually and it fixed everything. Has anyone else wasted half a day on something this dumb while traveling?

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1 Comment

luna_craig581mo ago

Jumping straight in, this reminds me of how we blame everything except the actual settings. Last week I spent an hour fighting with my smart TV because the sound was off, turns out my soundbar switched inputs on its own. Same with my car, the AC blows weak and I blamed the compressor, nope, just a dirty cabin filter. We always look at the big complicated stuff first and skip the tiny obvious things. It's like our brains refuse to check the simple fix until we're exhausted. You basically did the tech version of forgetting your glasses were on your head the whole time.