Barcelona eSIM
In Barcelona you connect to Movistar or Orange, whichever is performing better where you are standing. The typical speed across the country is 79 Mbps. Your data starts working the moment you land, before you reach the immigration hall.
- Networks
- Movistar and Orange
- Typical speed in Spain
- 79 Mbps typical, 23 Mbps at busy times
- 5G
- yes, non standalone
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans that cover Barcelona
| 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 Spain compares across Europe
- Regional typical speed
- 71 Mbps
- Upstream networks
- 2, Movistar, Orange
- 5G
- Yes, non standalone
- Next fastest nearby
- Iceland, 81 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Belgium, 77 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 4: Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, Valencia
Landing at Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport (BCN)
- Airport
- BCN / LEBL
- Distance
- 15 km from the centre of Barcelona
- Wifi on arrival
- Free wifi in the terminalAena's network is called AIRPORT FREE WIFI AENA and its own page describes access as free and unlimited, with two ways on: as a guest, or as an Aena Club member.
Getting into Barcelona
- Metro line L9 Sud (Aeroport T1 and Aeroport T2) (BCN), about 30 minutes. Runs through tunnels, where a signal drops
- Rodalies de Catalunya airport train (BCN), about 20 minutes
- Aerobus (BCN), about 35 minutes
Underground and on the metro
Barcelona Metro runs 12 lines. It opened in 1924. The operator does not publish whether the tunnels carry a mobile signal, so we do not claim either way.
Worth knowing about Barcelona
- The metro airport stations need a separate Airport Ticket (5.15 euros); ordinary passes such as the T-casual are not valid for entering or leaving Aeroport T1 and T2.
- L9 Sud serves both terminals and is deep bored, with tunnel sections up to 80 m below the surface, so you are underground for most of the ride in.
- The Barcelona Metro is run by two different operators, TMB (8 lines) and FGC (4 lines), across a 12-line network.
- Aena calls its airport network AIRPORT FREE WIFI AENA and describes access as free and unlimited, with the choice of logging in as a guest or as an Aena Club member.
- When Aena relaunched the service it listed three ways to register: social networks, Aena Club Cliente, or a simple form. Club members are then logged in automatically across the network for a year.
- TMB says L9 Sud does not run straight into the city centre. You change at Can Tries Gornal, Torrassa, Collblanc or Zona Universitaria, and the run takes about 30 minutes with trains every 7 minutes.
- TMB names the Hola Barcelona Travel Card as the other title valid at the airport metro stations, alongside the airport ticket.
- The T-casual is ten journeys and a single person ticket, so a couple cannot share one. It loads onto a personalised card, an anonymous card or an NFC phone.
- The airport train only serves Terminal 2. Barcelona's tourism board puts it at about 20 minutes to Barcelona-Sants, roughly every 30 minutes, running 05:40 to 23:40.
- The airport rail and metro stations sit in front of terminal T2B, reached by an elevated walkway over a car park and road. The metro counts it as fare zone 1, Rodalies as zone 4.
- Aerobus A1 leaves every 8 minutes and A2 every 15, taking about 35 minutes to Placa de Catalunya, and the service runs 24 hours a day.
- Rodalies says airport trains are a branch: services from Sant Celoni and Macanet cross Barcelona, then turn off at El Prat onto a single track spur to Terminal 2.
- TMB's own explainer on metro phone coverage counts 127 mobile telephony chambers, 300 antennas in tunnels and about 600 more in lobbies, corridors and platforms, joined by over 70 km of coaxial cable.
- TMB is candid that signal still drops underground, blaming infrastructure faults and the difficulty of radio propagation in certain tunnel sections.
- Barcelona Wifi reaches selected busy metro stations on lines 1 to 5, but TMB says it is capped at 256 Kbps because of regulatory limits.
- TMB reported that 126 metro stations had mobile network access, of which 46 carried Movistar 4G, with the operator publishing its coverage station by station.
- The city council publishes the locations of municipal wifi points as an open dataset, updated weekly, covering hotspots in municipal facilities and public space.