Colombia eSIM
Data for Colombia on Claro and Movistar, from $9.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and refills land on the line you already have, with nothing new to install.
- Networks
- Claro and Movistar
- Typical speed
- 38 Mbps typical, 9 Mbps at busy times
- 5G
- yes, non standalone
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for Colombia
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $9.89 | $9.89 | |
| 3 GB | Never expires | $6.30 | $18.89 | |
| 5 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $6.38 | $31.89 | |
| 10 GB | Never expires | $5.19 | $51.89 | |
| 20 GB | Never expires | $4.59 | $91.89 |
Every plan works the moment you land. Unused data returns to your wallet when the line closes, and customers get at least 100 MB of free rescue data a month even at zero balance.
What 38 Mbps actually means in Colombia
Typical download speed on Orbislo in Colombia: 38 Mbps. That sits close to the South America median of 34 Mbps, which makes Colombia an unremarkable place to be connected, in the good sense.
The tenth percentile is 9 Mbps. That gap between the median and the floor is normal and it is where the frustration lives: the connection is quick most of the time and noticeably slow in the busiest few percent of moments, typically at transport hubs at peak hour.
Maps, messaging, ride hailing and payment apps all work without complaint. Video calls connect but will drop resolution, and streaming is better set to standard definition than left on automatic. Tethering a laptop works for email and documents rather than for calls.
Which networks you will be on
Orbislo carries traffic in Colombia on Claro and Movistar. Your phone is not tied to one of them. When the network you are attached to congests or drops, the profile moves you to the other, and it happens without a prompt and without you noticing anything except that the connection kept working.
This matters more than the headline speed. Almost every travel eSIM sold today resells a single upstream agreement per country, so when that one network has a bad hour you have a bad hour with it and your only option is to buy a second eSIM from somebody else. A profile with more than one network behind it can make a decision you never see.
5G in Colombia: yes, non standalone. Worth knowing that 5G on a travel profile is normal rather than special, and that the tenth percentile above is the number that will decide how the trip feels, not the generation label in the status bar.
What data costs in Colombia
A 100 MB plan for Colombia starts at $0.56, which is $0.01 a gigabyte. That is the number to compare between providers, because a headline price attached to a different allowance tells you nothing.
The comparison most providers would rather you did not run is cost per gigabyte actually used. Independent surveys of travel data put the share of purchased data lost to expiry between 20 and 35 percent, because a plan that expires on day thirty deletes what you did not get through. Orbislo data has no expiry date, so the gigabyte you paid for is still there on the next trip. At the same headline price that is 25 to 40 percent more usable data, and in Colombia it means the effective cost is nearer $0.00 a gigabyte than $0.01.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for Colombia is to buy slightly less than you think you need and top up if you run out. Topping up takes about ten seconds and does not involve installing anything. Buying too much is the expensive mistake everywhere else and merely a neutral one here.
Landing in Colombia
Install before you fly, on your home wifi. The profile downloads while you still have a connection you trust, then sits dormant until you land in Colombia and it attaches to Claro.
On landing there is one thing to check: data roaming has to be switched on for the Orbislo line. It is off by default on both iOS and Android, and it has nothing to do with roaming charges here, because the plan is prepaid and there is no bill to run up. Turn it on for the Orbislo line and leave it off for your home line, and your home number keeps working for calls and bank codes without costing anything.
Coverage across Colombia
The figures above cover Colombia as a whole, and a national figure hides real variation. We publish separate figures for Bogota, Cartagena and Medellin, because the difference between a capital and a coastal town is usually larger than the difference between two countries.
Outside the cities, coverage follows the same pattern it does everywhere: the main roads and the tourist corridors are well served, and it thins in the mountains and on the water. No travel eSIM changes that, because it is the same physical network the local population uses. What a multi network profile changes is which of the available towers you get to use.
Getting a local SIM in Colombia
A prepaid line stays dead until the operator has collected the holder's identity details and checked the document type, number and issue date in real time. A foreigner is registered on a passport, and the seller has to tell the buyer before the sale that handing over those details is compulsory for the service to start.
Worth knowing about Colombia
- A handset bought abroad and carried in as traveller baggage has to have its IMEI registered with the local operator, which must handle the request on the spot through a shop, the call centre or a register your device option on its website, with an SMS code sent to the line to prove the phone is yours.
- Users roaming internationally on the local networks are written out of the stolen handset and IMEI control chapter altogether. A phone running on a foreign line is therefore outside the registration and blocking regime that applies to local lines.
How Colombia compares across South America
- Regional typical speed
- 33.5 Mbps
- Upstream networks
- 2, Claro, Movistar
- 5G
- Yes, non standalone
- Next fastest nearby
- Uruguay, 48 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Peru, 35 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 3: Bogota, Cartagena, Medellin
