Why We Publish Our Speed Data
Most vacation rental listings that mention WiFi offer nothing more than that word: WiFi. No speeds, no methodology, no disclosure of what "WiFi" actually means in practice — whether it's a dedicated broadband connection or a cellular signal extender that caps at 5 Mbps on a good day with no wind and nobody else on the same tower.
For a remote worker evaluating a cabin for a workcation, this opacity is a real problem. A missed client call due to a dropped connection can cost you a deal. A VPN timeout in the middle of a code deploy can cost you an evening. A Zoom freeze during a team presentation can cost you professional credibility that took months to build. The stakes of unreliable internet for remote workers aren't abstract — they're concrete and they're consequential.
Refresh House was built with the premise that remote workers deserve transparency. We run scheduled speed tests throughout the day and week, measure from multiple devices and locations within the cabin, and publish the results here. If our internet underperforms our published data, you can hold us accountable. That's the level of confidence we're asking you to bring to booking with us, and it's the level of transparency we owe you in return.
Methodology
All speed tests are conducted using Speedtest by Ookla (speedtest.net), the industry standard measurement tool. Tests are run from multiple device types: a desktop workstation connected via wired ethernet to the router, a MacBook Pro connected via WiFi from the dedicated workspace, and an iPad connected via WiFi from the main living area.
Tests are run at six intervals throughout the day: 7 AM, 9 AM, 12 PM, 3 PM, 6 PM, and 9 PM. This sampling captures performance during low-use periods (early morning), peak remote work hours (9 AM and 3 PM), and evening hours. The data table below reflects averages across all measurement times and devices from Q4 2025 through Q1 2026.
We test consistently to the same Ookla server in Seattle (approximately 75 miles away) for comparability across measurements. Speeds to nearer servers or CDN edge nodes may show slightly higher numbers; we use the Seattle server because it represents real-world performance for cloud-based tools most remote workers actually use.
Data reflects measurements taken from Q4 2025 through Q1 2026 using Speedtest by Ookla from multiple devices simultaneously.
Speed Test Results
| Metric | Wired (Ethernet) | WiFi — Workspace | WiFi — Living Area | WiFi — Deck |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Download (Mbps) | 212 | 187 | 174 | 156 |
| Upload (Mbps) | 108 | 94 | 89 | 77 |
| Ping (ms) | 9 | 12 | 14 | 18 |
| Jitter (ms) | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Packet Loss | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
The wired ethernet connection at the workspace desk delivers the most consistent performance — this is the setup we recommend for any remote worker whose work involves frequent video calls, large file transfers, or VPN-tunneled traffic. WiFi performance across all tested locations exceeds the thresholds required for every professional remote work use case, including simultaneous multi-user households.
What These Numbers Mean for Remote Workers
Raw speed numbers need context to be useful. Here's what Refresh House's internet performance means in practical terms for the specific tasks remote workers actually perform:
Video conferencing (Zoom, Google Meet, Teams): HD video calls require approximately 3.5–4 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload per participant. A household with four people on simultaneous HD video calls requires roughly 16 Mbps download and 12 Mbps upload. At Refresh House's WiFi speeds, you could support approximately 40 simultaneous HD video participants before approaching bandwidth limits — in practice, this means video conferencing performance is essentially unconstrained for any realistic workcation scenario.
VPN and corporate network access: VPN connections typically add 10–20% overhead to bandwidth usage due to encryption processing. At Refresh House's speeds, this overhead is inconsequential. More important for VPN performance is latency — the ping of 12 ms on WiFi and 9 ms wired is well within the threshold for comfortable VPN-tunneled work. For comparison, a typical urban office ethernet connection averages 15–25 ms ping to its ISP; Refresh House's wired connection outperforms many office networks on this metric.
Large file uploads and downloads: A 1 GB file upload at 94 Mbps upload speed takes approximately 85 seconds. At 10 Mbps (a common "fast" rural cabin speed), the same upload takes over 13 minutes. For developers pushing large builds, designers uploading source files, or video editors transferring footage, this difference is significant across a full work week.
Cloud-based development and DevOps: Git operations, container pulls, CI/CD pipeline interactions, and cloud platform CLIs all perform at the speeds remote workers experience on their home office connections. Refresh House has been specifically tested with AWS, GCP, Azure, and GitHub operations — all perform normally.
4K video conferencing and streaming: 4K video call quality (available in some enterprise Zoom and Teams plans) requires approximately 20 Mbps per participant. Streaming 4K content (Netflix, YouTube) requires approximately 25 Mbps. Both are supported simultaneously at Refresh House without quality degradation.
Comparison to Other Cabin Rental Options Near Mount Rainier
The landscape of cabin rental internet connectivity near Mount Rainier is highly variable. Based on our research of publicly listed options in the Ashford, Elbe, and Packwood areas, the internet situation at most rental cabins falls into one of three categories:
Cellular hotspot or signal extender (most common): These setups relay a cellular signal (typically 4G LTE or spotty 5G) through a router. Download speeds typically range from 5–30 Mbps with high variability, ping of 40–80 ms, and performance that degrades significantly when local cell towers are congested (which happens reliably on summer weekends when the area fills with park visitors). Upload speeds are often severely asymmetric — 5 Mbps upload is common even when download appears acceptable. VPN performance is poor due to latency.
DSL via legacy telephone infrastructure (some older properties): DSL connections in rural areas near Mount Rainier typically deliver 10–25 Mbps download and 1–5 Mbps upload with higher latency than cable or fiber. More reliable than cellular in most conditions but significantly slower on upload — a critical limitation for remote workers who frequently share large files or stream video outbound.
Dedicated fiber or cable broadband (rare, requires recent infrastructure investment): This category — where Refresh House operates — provides symmetrical or near-symmetrical speeds above 100 Mbps, low latency, and reliability that does not degrade based on weather or cellular tower congestion. Very few cabin rentals in the Mount Rainier gateway communities currently have access to this tier of connectivity.
Activities by Internet Speed Requirement
To help remote workers plan their workcation connectivity needs, here is a reference table of common remote work activities and the internet speeds required for each:
| Activity | Min. Download | Min. Upload | Refresh House Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Email and messaging (Slack, Teams chat) | 1 Mbps | 1 Mbps | Excellent |
| SD video call (720p) | 2.5 Mbps | 2.5 Mbps | Excellent |
| HD video call (1080p) | 4 Mbps | 3.5 Mbps | Excellent |
| Multiple simultaneous HD calls (4 users) | 16 Mbps | 14 Mbps | Excellent |
| VPN-tunneled corporate access | 10 Mbps | 5 Mbps | Excellent |
| Cloud storage sync (large files) | 25 Mbps | 25 Mbps | Excellent |
| Software development / cloud DevOps | 50 Mbps | 20 Mbps | Excellent |
| 4K video streaming (personal) | 25 Mbps | N/A | Excellent |
Network Infrastructure Details
Refresh House uses a dedicated fiber broadband connection with a mesh WiFi system (802.11ax / WiFi 6) providing seamless roaming between access points inside the cabin and on the covered deck. WiFi 6 provides meaningful improvements over older 802.11ac systems in high-device-count environments — particularly relevant for workcation guests who typically arrive with 3–5 devices each (laptop, phone, tablet, wearable, smart speaker).
The wired ethernet port at the main workspace desk connects directly to the router via Cat6 cable. This connection is recommended for any professional who cannot tolerate even the minor variability of WiFi — particularly developers, financial analysts, and others doing work where latency spikes (even brief ones) have workflow consequences.
The fiber connection has a 99.9% uptime track record since installation, reflecting the commercial-grade infrastructure that serves the Ashford area. In the rare event of a brief ISP outage, a 4G LTE backup router automatically provides connectivity at lower speeds (typically 30–50 Mbps download) without requiring any manual switching.
