MEO is Portugal’s largest telecom provider — roughly the equivalent of BT in the UK in terms of market dominance and infrastructure coverage. As someone who relies heavily on fast and stable internet, I didn’t hesitate to go with their top-tier fiber plan after moving to a new place in Portugal: 1000Mbps download / 400Mbps upload, priced at €59.95 per month. On paper, it looked perfect, and initial speed tests confirmed it — I was consistently hitting full speeds, especially to servers within Portugal.
But after a few weeks of real-world use, I began to notice something troubling: uploading anything to servers outside Portugal was painfully slow.
Upload Speeds Abroad? A Fraction of What You Pay For
I regularly transfer large files, back up data to cloud storage abroad, and occasionally upload videos or conduct remote work that depends on stable international connectivity. That’s when I started running tests to see what was going on.
Here’s what I found:
- Uploading to Portuguese servers? Solid — around 350–400Mbps.
- Uploading to servers in France, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, even Spain? Speeds drop to 10–30Mbps, sometimes even lower.
That’s less than 10% of the advertised upload speed. And it wasn’t a one-off — I tested at different times, across different days, using multiple tools and endpoints. Same story every time.
MEO’s Response? “If It’s Fine in Portugal, It’s Fine”
I called MEO’s support line to report the issue. The technician ran a basic test, confirmed the domestic speeds were fine, and then said something that pretty much sums up the company’s stance:
“As long as speeds within Portugal are normal, we don’t see any problem. International performance isn’t our responsibility.”
In other words: it doesn’t matter if your upload speeds to the rest of the world are garbage — as long as it looks good locally, MEO considers it acceptable.
This isn’t just network congestion or poor peering — it looks and feels like intentional throttling of outbound international traffic, especially for upload.
My Advice: Don’t Choose MEO If You Need Reliable Upload Speeds Abroad
I’m not writing this to rant — I just wish someone had pointed this out before I signed up.
If your internet usage is mostly local — web browsing, Netflix, maybe some Portuguese streaming services — you’ll probably be fine.
But if you:
- Upload to international cloud storage or servers
- Work remotely and rely on fast international connections
- Use VPNs or sync tools across borders
- Upload video or audio to global platforms
…then you’ll run into frustrating bottlenecks with MEO. You’re paying for 400Mbps upload and getting less than 30Mbps the moment your traffic crosses the border.
Final Thoughts
MEO delivers decent domestic speeds, but if your workflow or hobbies involve uploading data outside Portugal, this ISP will let you down. It’s 2025 — international upload performance should not be this poor on a premium fiber plan.
I’ve since started exploring alternatives, and I suggest anyone with similar needs do the same. If you’ve experienced this too, feel free to share — I’d be curious to know how widespread this is.