Sudan eSIM
Data for Sudan on Zain Sudan, MTN Sudan and Sudani, from $18.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and you install Orbislo once rather than once per trip.
- Networks
- Zain Sudan, MTN Sudan and Sudani
- Real speed
- 32.1 Mbps
- 5G
- 4G only
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for Sudan
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $18.89 | $18.89 | |
| 3 GB | Never expires | $13.96 | $41.89 | |
| 5 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $12.78 | $63.89 |
Every plan works the moment you land. Unused data returns to your wallet when the plan ends, and there is 100 MB of free rescue data on your account even at zero balance.
What 32.1 Mbps actually means in Sudan
That sits close to the Africa median of 30 Mbps, which makes Sudan an unremarkable place to be connected, in the good sense.
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 Sudan on Zain Sudan, MTN Sudan and Sudani. 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 Sudan: 4G only. A well provisioned 4G cell comfortably outruns a congested 5G one, which is why the figure above is measured throughput rather than a network generation.
What data costs in Sudan
A 1 GB plan for Sudan starts at $18.89, which is $18.89 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 Sudan it means the effective cost is nearer $13.60 a gigabyte than $18.89.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for Sudan 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 Sudan
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 Sudan and it attaches to Zain Sudan. Median time from tapping install to having service across all Orbislo orders is 41 seconds.
On landing there is one thing to check and it is the thing that goes wrong about sixty percent of the time people tell us they have no service: 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 Sudan
The measurements above are aggregated across Sudan, and a national median hides real variation. We publish separate figures for Khartoum, Nyala and Port Sudan, 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 Sudan
A foreign visitor registers on the passport they entered the country with, or on the foreigners' registration card issued by the authorities. Buying or replacing a SIM means signing a service contract that records the full name, the document number, its issue and expiry dates and an address, then stamped by the sales point or an authorised distributor.
Worth knowing about Sudan
- A visiting foreigner gets a temporary SIM valid for no more than three months, against the passport used to enter plus a valid entry visa. The line expires by itself at the end of that period.
- A permanent line is open only to foreign residents, who show a passport together with a residence permit and foreigner number, or the foreigners' card that carries that number.
How Sudan compares across Africa
- Speed rank
- 8 of 24 destinations we have measured in Africa
- Regional median
- 29.5 Mbps
- Upstream networks
- 3, Zain Sudan, MTN Sudan, Sudani
- 5G
- No, LTE only
- Next fastest nearby
- Tunisia, 33 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Botswana, 31 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 3: Khartoum, Nyala, Port Sudan
