Cologne eSIM
In Cologne you connect to Telekom or Vodafone, whichever is performing better where you are standing. The typical speed across the country is 63 Mbps. Your data starts working the moment you land, before you reach the immigration hall.
- Networks
- Telekom and Vodafone
- Typical speed in Germany
- 63 Mbps typical, 15 Mbps at busy times
- 5G
- yes, non standalone
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans that cover Cologne
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $5.89 | $5.89 | |
| 3 GB | Never expires | $2.63 | $7.89 | |
| 5 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $1.98 | $9.89 | |
| 10 GB | Never expires | $1.49 | $14.89 | |
| 20 GB | Never expires | $1.19 | $23.89 | |
| 50 GB | Never expires | $0.94 | $46.89 |
How Germany compares across Europe
- Regional typical speed
- 71 Mbps
- Upstream networks
- 2, Telekom, Vodafone
- 5G
- Yes, non standalone
- Next fastest nearby
- Czechia, 64 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Andorra, 61 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 4: Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Cologne
Landing at Cologne Bonn Airport Konrad Adenauer (CGN)
- Airport
- CGN / EDDK
- Distance
- 12 km from the centre of Cologne
- Wifi on arrival
- Free wifi in the terminalA Koln Bonn Airport press release says the network is 'AIRPORT FREE WIFI', that it has been free with no time limit since 2011, and that it takes a one off registration where you enter a name.
Getting into Cologne
- S-Bahn S19 from the underground airport station, every 20 minutes on weekdays, plus RE 6 and RB 27 (CGN). Runs through tunnels, where a signal drops
- Local bus route 161 between the airport and Cologne (CGN)
Underground and on the metro
Cologne Stadtbahn runs 12 lines. The operator does not publish whether the tunnels carry a mobile signal, so we do not claim either way.
Worth knowing about Cologne
- Cologne has no metro. Its 12 line Stadtbahn was built as an underground tram, tunnelled through the congested centre and on the street elsewhere, with the first tunnel opening between 1968 and 1970.
- The airport station is 18 m below ground between the two terminals, opened on 12 June 2004, under a 36 m wide steel and glass roof weighing 540 tonnes.
- The 15.2 km Cologne Airport loop that serves the station includes 5.26 km of tunnel, so trains to and from the airport spend several minutes underground.
- Cologne Bonn is one of Germany's few 24 hour airports and its third largest cargo hub, a base for FedEx Express and UPS, which alone flies 140 times a week from it.
- The airport says it was the first German airport to give passengers free wifi on this scale, from 2011, and that it works past security at the gates as well as landside.
- hotspot.koeln is the City of Cologne's free public Wi-Fi, run by NetCologne. Select it, open a browser and accept the terms, with no name or email asked, and you get up to four hours online per login.
- hotspot.koeln covers the Hohe Strasse and Schildergasse shopping streets, much of the inner city, the Ringe, the zoo grounds and neighbourhood centres such as Severinstrasse, Deutzer Freiheit and Neusser Strasse. About 40,000 people log in each day.
- The RheinEnergieStadion has 220 hotspots of the same city network, so all 50,000 spectators at a match or concert can get onto the Wi-Fi.
- Only about 36 of the Stadtbahn's 199 km run underground. In May 2021 Telekom finished LTE for the whole underground network with 250 antennas and about 90 fibre fed remote units, after years of poor or no signal in the tunnels.
- The tunnel antennas can carry Vodafone and O2 frequencies as well, with five to seven of them per underground stop covering the platforms and the tunnel sections leading away.
- KVB Stadtbahn trains run through the night on Friday to Saturday, Saturday to Sunday and before public holidays, every 30 minutes within the city. On weeknights service stops for a few hours; on line 1 the break lasts about three hours.
- Cologne adds a culture tax of 5 percent to accommodation bills, charged on the accommodation price including VAT and cleaning fees. Since 1 July 2024 business stays pay it too.
- S-Bahn, regional trains and buses serve Cologne Bonn Airport around the clock, and it has its own ICE station close to both terminals. The go.Center at the airport sells local and long distance tickets and gives travel advice.