French Polynesia eSIM
Data for French Polynesia on Vini and Vodafone, from $43.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and refills land on the line you already have, with nothing new to install.
- Networks
- Vini and Vodafone
- Typical speed
- 39 Mbps typical, 9 Mbps at busy times
- 5G
- 4G only
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for French Polynesia
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $43.89 | $43.89 | |
| 3 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $35.30 | $105.89 |
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 39 Mbps actually means in French Polynesia
Typical download speed on Orbislo in French Polynesia: 39 Mbps. That sits close to the Oceania median of 39 Mbps, which makes French Polynesia 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 French Polynesia on Vini and Vodafone. 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 French Polynesia: 4G only. A well provisioned 4G cell comfortably outruns a congested 5G one, which is why the figure above is throughput rather than a network generation.
What data costs in French Polynesia
A 500 MB plan for French Polynesia starts at $7.35, 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 French Polynesia it means the effective cost is nearer $0.01 a gigabyte than $0.01.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for French Polynesia 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 French Polynesia
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 French Polynesia and it attaches to Vini.
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 French Polynesia
The figures above cover French Polynesia as a whole, and a national figure hides real variation. We publish separate figures for Papeete and Bora Bora, 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.
Worth knowing about French Polynesia
- A foreign SIM works in French Polynesia only where your own operator has a partner agreement with the local network, and what you use is billed at your operator's own roaming rate rather than a local one.
- Local numbers in French Polynesia are eight digits and are dialled straight through with no area code in front, while an international call is placed with a plus sign and the country code.
- French Polynesia sits outside the European roam like at home area. The list of places where a European allowance travels without a surcharge names the French overseas departments and Saint Martin, and French Polynesia is not among them.
How French Polynesia compares across Oceania
- Regional typical speed
- 30.5 Mbps
- Upstream networks
- 2, Vini, Vodafone
- 5G
- 4G only
- Next fastest nearby
- New Caledonia, 44 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Fiji, 22 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 2: Papeete, Bora Bora
