When I was there in the summer I tested both RBF and non-RBF txs, and found that instant confirmation was inconsistent for both. Often a non-RBF tx required a confirmation, often a RBF tx would give me cash immediately. There were no guarantees either way and the RBF flag didn't seem to make a clear difference.
It's possible that the behavior is tied to your phone number; the ATMs are AML/KYC as getting an El Salvadoran sim card without ID isn't legally possible.
I was able to buy a SIM at pharmacy (haven't come across a mobile carrier yet where I've been) & didn't give my ID when buying
But I haven't been able to activate cause I don't have a tool to open my SIM slot (paper clip failed) - maybe you need to KYC when you activate?
A lot of countries do the ID check when you activate. Or they just skipped a legally necessary step to save time.
I have a Spanish SIM card that should have been activated in my name. I noticed the storekeeper filling it out with someone else's passport details. 😂
I bought a retail SIM card only to learn online activation requires the SV national ID number. Wasted $3.
Instead a kiosk in a supermarket had a guy selling phone plans. I asked for an activated SIM card. He asked for ID. "Oops I forgot it at the hotel." He just went ahead and activated it in his own phone before handing it over. YMMV.
Hmm I might have to do some more testing but my reports were not only from my own experience, but also that of others. But, not scientific because: since I don't actually want to wait, I was recently only using Electrum with RBF switched off (since they have that toggle in their interface), never on.
Also I am using them only occasionally since as mentioned I don't actually trust them (which to my mind is like a 100x bigger issue than LN support! An ATM which randomly decides to not issue cash is not OK!).
Re: SIMs and so on, good point. Behaviour might change if you are using a foreign number.
It's quite possible that they've changed the behavior since I visited too. And also possible the behavior varies from one ATM to another.
