Madagascar eSIM
Data for Madagascar on Telma and Orange, from $20.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and refills land on the line you already have, with nothing new to install.
- Networks
- Telma and Orange
- Typical speed
- 22 Mbps typical, 5 Mbps at busy times
- 5G
- 4G only
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for Madagascar
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $20.89 | $20.89 | |
| 3 GB | Never expires | $15.63 | $46.89 | |
| 5 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $14.58 | $72.89 |
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 22 Mbps actually means in Madagascar
Typical download speed on Orbislo in Madagascar: 22 Mbps. That is below the Africa median of 30 Mbps, so plan around it rather than being surprised by it.
The tenth percentile is 5 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 Madagascar on Telma and Orange. 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 Madagascar: 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 Madagascar
A 1 GB plan for Madagascar starts at $20.89, which is $20.89 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 Madagascar it means the effective cost is nearer $15.04 a gigabyte than $20.89.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for Madagascar 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 Madagascar
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 Madagascar and it attaches to Telma.
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.
Worth knowing about Madagascar
- A lost or stolen phone is chased through the courts here, not through the operator. The regulator's advice is to file a complaint against persons unknown with the gendarmerie or the police quoting the IMEI, after which those authorities apply to the tribunal for a requisition, and only once that requisition reaches the mobile operators does the search for the handset begin.
- The regulator asks people to write the IMEI down before they need it, since it is the unique number of fifteen to seventeen digits that lets a handset be blocked or unblocked, and dialling *#06# displays it.
- Every telecommunications terminal and every radio device has to be approved by the regulator before it is sold or used here. The categories named include GSM, DECT, CDMA and AMPS radio terminals, VHF, UHF and HF transceivers, INMARSAT and GMPCS satellite terminals, GSM gateways, modems and routers, and the regulator publishes the list of approved equipment and the list of approved resellers.
- A mobile signal repeater may only be used with the regulator's express and exclusive authorisation, and it blames unauthorised ones for most of the interference currently recorded on the mobile networks.
- Complaints run in a fixed order. A dissatisfied user has to raise it with their own provider first and can then take it to the regulator on 600, and the operator help lines are 121 for Airtel, 204 for Orange and 800 for Telma mobile.
How Madagascar compares across Africa
- Regional typical speed
- 29.5 Mbps
- Upstream networks
- 2, Telma, Orange
- 5G
- 4G only
- Next fastest nearby
- Mayotte, 23.2 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Ethiopia, 21 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 1: Antananarivo
