Nigeria eSIM
Data for Nigeria on MTN and Airtel, from $12.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and refills land on the line you already have, with nothing new to install.
- Networks
- MTN and Airtel
- Typical speed
- 26 Mbps typical, 5 Mbps at busy times
- 5G
- 4G only
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for Nigeria
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $12.89 | $12.89 | |
| 3 GB | Never expires | $8.63 | $25.89 | |
| 5 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $7.78 | $38.89 | |
| 10 GB | Never expires | $6.59 | $65.89 |
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 26 Mbps actually means in Nigeria
Typical download speed on Orbislo in Nigeria: 26 Mbps. That sits close to the Africa median of 30 Mbps, which makes Nigeria an unremarkable place to be connected, in the good sense.
The tenth percentile drops to 5 Mbps, a long way below the median. In practice that means Nigeria is quick when the cell is quiet and difficult when it is not. Download your maps and your boarding passes before you need them.
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 Nigeria on MTN and Airtel. 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 Nigeria: 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 Nigeria
A 100 MB plan for Nigeria starts at $0.47, which is $0.00 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 Nigeria it means the effective cost is nearer $0.00 a gigabyte than $0.00.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for Nigeria 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 Nigeria
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 Nigeria and it attaches to MTN.
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 Nigeria
The figures above cover Nigeria as a whole, and a national figure hides real variation. We publish separate figures for Lagos and Abuja, 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 Nigeria
The National Identity Number is the only proof of identity a Nigerian operator will take for a new line, so a visitor is handled under a separate rule. Someone on a visa shorter than two years presents the passport biodata page, the visa page and the passport page carrying the immigration entry stamp, all captured at the counter.
Worth knowing about Nigeria
- Buying a Nigerian line as a visitor is done in person and on camera. The shop records a walk in image and compares it against the photograph on the visa page before the line is switched on.
- Nigerian operators send the passport numbers of foreign subscribers to the immigration service every week, and a line is deactivated where the number comes back invalid.
- A foreigner living in Nigeria for two years or more cannot use the visitor route at all and has to enrol for a National Identity Number on a residence permit before a line will be registered.
How Nigeria compares across Africa
- Regional typical speed
- 29.5 Mbps
- Upstream networks
- 2, MTN, Airtel
- 5G
- 4G only
- Next fastest nearby
- Uganda, 27 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Tanzania, 24 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 2: Lagos, Abuja
