Medellin eSIM
In Medellin you connect to Claro or Movistar, whichever is performing better where you are standing. The median across the country is 38 Mbps. Your data starts working the moment you land, before you reach the immigration hall.
- Networks
- Claro and Movistar
- Real speed in Colombia
- 38 Mbps median, 9 Mbps for the slowest tenth684 travellers across Colombia, rolling 90 days
- 5G
- yes, non standalone
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans that cover Medellin
| 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 |
How Colombia compares across South America
- Speed rank
- 4 of 10 destinations we sell in South America
- Regional median
- 34.5 Mbps
- Consistency
- The slowest tenth still reaches 24 percent of the median
- 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
- tenth percentile
- 9 Mbps
- Behind these figures
- 684 travellers, rolling 90 days
Landing at Jose Maria Cordova International Airport (MDE)
- Airport
- MDE / SKRG
- Distance
- 20 km from the centre of Medellin
- Also serves
- Olaya Herrera Airport (EOH)
Getting into Medellin
- Tunel de Oriente highway to Medellin (MDE), about 20 minutes. Runs through tunnels, where a signal drops
Underground and on the metro
Medellin Metro runs 2 lines. It opened in 1995. The operator does not publish whether the tunnels carry a mobile signal, so we do not claim either way.
Worth knowing about Medellin
- Medellin's international airport is not in Medellin: it sits in Rionegro, about 20 km southeast, over the mountain ridge from the city.
- The Tunel de Oriente, opened in 2019, cut the airport road journey from almost an hour to about 20 minutes - but it means the transfer now runs through a long mountain tunnel where a mobile signal can drop.
- The Medellin Metro is built at grade and on elevated viaduct, with no underground running, so trains stay in the open air across the whole network.
- The metro system also includes five Metrocable aerial cable-car lines feeding the hillside neighbourhoods, all of them above ground.
- A second airport, Olaya Herrera (EOH), sits inside the city itself and handles domestic and regional flights, so a Colombian connection may land you much closer to the centre than MDE.