Internet and mobile

Unitel T+ and CVMóvel are the two mobile operators. Buy a local SIM at the airport; eSIM options exist, but a physical SIM still fails less often in the mountains. Fibre has reached Praia, Mindelo, Santa Maria and parts of Sal Rei. That sentence is doing a lot of work. The next 400 metres of dirt road can undo it.

Mobile

Coverage is good in towns and along the tourist strips, patchy in the valleys of Santo Antão, the crater of Fogo, and parts of interior Santiago. A dual-SIM phone with both operators is the remote worker’s small arrogance that pays off.

Top up by app or scratch card. Data packages are fine for maps and WhatsApp; they are not a fibre substitute if two people are on video calls.

Fibre and the exact address

Speeds in Palmarejo, Plateau, Mindelo centre and the better parts of Santa Maria are enough for video calls if the household is not streaming four devices. A villa 400 m from the Santa Maria exchange is not the same as a house on the Ponta Preta dirt road. Test the exact address. Speedtest on the estate agent’s iPhone in the street is advertising.

Installation can take weeks. A rental that already has an active point is worth more than a prettier terrace without one. Ask the current tenant for the provider name and whether the last rainy season killed the box on the wall.

Working from here

A remote worker should treat the first month as a trial: morning calls with Europe, afternoon heat, the 18:00 slowdown when the neighbourhood streams football. A UPS for the router is cheaper than an angry client. Cafés with “wifi” on Sal are for email, not a board meeting.

Starlink has appeared on some properties. Check the current local rules and the tree line before you assume a dish solves Santo Antão. It helps. It is not invisible, and it is not free.

A practical kit

• Local SIM on day one, even if you kept your European number on eSIM.
• Fibre in your own name as soon as the lease allows.
• A 4G router as backup.
• The provider’s WhatsApp, written on paper, because the outage will include your saved contacts if the phone is dead.

Internet here is good enough for a modern life in the right street, and a story you tell at dinner in the wrong one. Choose the street.

Island notes for signal

Palmarejo, Plateau, Mindelo centre, Santa Maria near the exchange: workable fibre. Ponta Preta dirt road, crater of Fogo, cobbles above Paúl: bring a 4G router and humility. Test at the hour you will work, not at noon on the agent’s hotspot.

A couple both on video calls need a grown-up line, not a café password. Children on European homework platforms need the same.

Lecture checklist

• SIM at the airport, fibre in your own name.
• UPS on the router.
• Speedtest at 09:00 and 18:00 from the desk, not the street.
• Provider WhatsApp on paper.
• Backup 4G before you promise a client “I’m on island time but always online”.

Remote work is possible. It is an address problem, not an island slogan.