Travel · Southeast Asia

Working from Vietnam with a Mac: internet, eSIMs and what’s blocked

Vietnam is one of the easier countries in Asia to work from with a Mac. Most services load, and mobile data is fast and cheap. The two things that catch people out are Telegram, which the government ordered blocked in 2025, and the undersea cables that carry much international traffic, where faults can slow some sites and services hosted abroad.

Region: Southeast Asia
Blocked: Telegram, ordered blocked in May 2025¹².
Calls: Telegram calls go with Telegram¹; undersea cable faults can make any call to a server abroad worse³.
SIM rule: New SIM cards are registered with facial recognition, checked against the national database, since April 2026⁶.
VPN law: Social media accounts must be verified with a Vietnamese number or an ID number before they can post⁵.

Checked 1 November 2026. Rules and blocks change, sometimes overnight. Each claim links to its source; where a source and this page differ, the source wins.

What’s blocked or restricted

Vietnam blocks specific services and sites rather than whole categories.

Telegram. On 21 May 2025 the telecoms department of the Ministry of Science and Technology told internet providers to stop Telegram’s activities in Vietnam, saying the platform hadn’t cooperated in criminal investigations¹.
Identity rules. Decree 147 of November 2024 requires platforms to confirm users’ identities with official documents or local mobile numbers².
Undersea cables. Most international traffic travels on submarine cables, such as AAG, APG, IA, AAE-1, ADC and SJC2, and they have had some ten incidents a year since 2022³. In August 2026, four were faulty or impaired at the same time³, and for much of 2024–25 three of the five active cables had problems².

A cable fault isn’t a block. International services can slow while local sites remain responsive, especially at peak hours³. Operators reroute traffic, including over a land cable to Singapore, which softens the worst of it⁴. When Telegram or another blocked service won’t load, Kilobat can identify signs of a network block or a service’s own regional refusal, though the result can be inconclusive. See blocked here, not down.

Calling apps

For calls, the cables matter more than any rule. When international capacity drops, video and voice calls to servers abroad can stutter, and gaming and streaming slow too³.

Telegram calls are unavailable along with the rest of Telegram¹. Move contacts who use it to another app before you go.
Ordinary phone calls through your carrier aren’t internet calls, and don’t depend on the cables in the same way.

How mobile data reaches your Mac

There are three ways to get mobile data to your Mac.

A Vietnamese SIM. Cheap and fast for local sites. Your data goes through the Vietnamese network, so the Telegram block applies, and so do cable faults on foreign traffic¹³.
Roaming on your home SIM. Roaming data can be routed through your home carrier⁸, but the route and service availability vary by carrier and network. Check with your provider and do not rely on access to a specific service.
A travel eSIM. Many exit to the internet through another operator’s gateway in a third country⁸⁹. What loads, and how fast, depends on that route; sellers rarely say which it is.

Vietnamese law still applies to what you do in Vietnam, whichever way the data travels.

What the law says about VPNs

Vietnam’s rules for visitors are about identity more than circumvention.

Since 25 December 2024, social network accounts used in Vietnam must be verified with a Vietnamese mobile number or a personal ID number; unverified accounts can’t post, comment, livestream or share⁵.
Foreign platforms verify with an ID number when a user confirms they have no Vietnamese mobile number⁵.
The Telegram order cited the Telecommunications Law and the decree that implements it¹⁷.

The sources used here don’t address individuals’ use of VPNs directly. The rules in force put the duties on platforms and telecom operators.

SIM and eSIM registration

Every SIM is tied to a verified identity, and since 2026 to a face.

Since 15 April 2026, new mobile subscriptions require facial biometric verification, with personal data checked against the national resident and identity databases⁶.
When an operator detects a device change, it may suspend outgoing calls and SMS until the subscriber re-verifies; for some already-verified subscribers the device-change requirement began on 15 June⁶.
The user then has 30 days to verify before all services are suspended⁶. Registration runs through the VNeID app, operator apps or service points⁶.
Since September 2026, foreigners who are in Vietnam lawfully can apply in person for a VNeID electronic identity account with their passport¹⁰.

Hotel and café Wi-Fi

Hotel, café and coworking Wi-Fi is usually a password on the table or at the front desk, sometimes with a sign-in page.

On Wi-Fi, international traffic crosses the same undersea cables³. A café speed test to a local server can look fine while a video call abroad struggles.
If a sign-in page never appears, see why the Wi-Fi sign-in page doesn’t show.

Prepare your Mac before you go

Plan for slow international links rather than blocks.

Download big installers, updates and container images before you go, or overnight, when international links are less busy than at peak hours³.
Move group chats and call contacts off Telegram before you arrive¹.
For two-factor sign-in, an authenticator app works offline. Its codes come from a shared secret and the clock¹¹, so they keep working when texts to a roaming number are slow.
Save offline maps and booking details in case your connection drops on the road.

Where Kilobat helps

Kilobat checks your connection and the service to help you investigate what may be wrong.

Is it them or me, or blocked here? Kilobat checks your connection and the service’s status page. It may identify signs of a network block or a service’s own regional refusal; results can be inconclusive. See blocked here, not down and “not available in your region” answers.
Hotel Wi-Fi sign-in. Kilobat can notice a sign-in page and offers a button to open it. With Pro, it can warn before a session expires once it has learned its usual length. See hotel Wi-Fi login on a Mac.
Leak test. The VPN leak test checks for selected DNS, IPv6 and UDP leaks. Passing these checks does not prove that all traffic uses the VPN. See proxies and VPNs.
Hotspot data saver and data packs. The Travel profile holds back backups and updaters on your phone’s hotspot, and a budget that starts over only when you reset it fits a prepaid data pack. See save hotspot data.
Call reports. After each call, Kilobat says whether it froze and why, so a congested international link isn’t blamed on the café. See video calls and Kilobat for digital nomads.

Guides for the road: Wi-Fi login page does not appear on a Mac, Homebrew or npm downloads fail on a Mac, Mac uses Personal Hotspot data in the background and Test for call stutter.

Questions

Why is the internet in Vietnam slow for foreign sites but fine for local ones?

An undersea cable fault is one possible cause. International links can slow during faults, although operators can reroute traffic and other causes can also affect a connection³⁴.

Does Telegram work in Vietnam?

The government ordered internet providers to block it in May 2025¹.

Sources

Checked on 1 November 2026. Government, regulator and travel-advice pages come first where they exist; news outlets and research cover what officials don’t publish, such as which services are blocked. This page explains the situation; it isn’t legal advice.

Know whether it’s the network, the country or you

Kilobat is a Mac menu-bar app that checks your own line, the Wi-Fi sign-in page and the service’s status page, guards a hotspot’s data and reports on every call.

Download for Mac ↓

$ brew install seifip/kilobat/kilobat