Suriname eSIM
Data for Suriname on Telesur and Digicel, from $16.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and you install Orbislo once rather than once per trip.
- Networks
- Telesur and Digicel
- 5G
- yes, standalone
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for Suriname
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $16.89 | $16.89 | |
| 3 GB | Never expires | $12.30 | $36.89 | |
| 5 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $11.18 | $55.89 | |
| 10 GB | Never expires | $9.39 | $93.89 |
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.
Which networks you will be on
Orbislo carries traffic in Suriname on Telesur and Digicel. 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 Suriname: yes, standalone. Worth knowing that 5G on a travel profile is normal rather than special, and that the tenth percentile above is the number that will decide how the trip feels, not the generation label in the status bar.
What data costs in Suriname
A 500 MB plan for Suriname starts at $2.42, 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 Suriname it means the effective cost is nearer $0.00 a gigabyte than $0.00.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for Suriname 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 Suriname
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 Suriname and it attaches to Telesur. 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.
Getting a local SIM in Suriname
The Wet Telecommunicatievoorzieningen carries no subscriber identity or SIM registration provision. The only identity documents named anywhere in the act are the credentials supervisory officers must carry and show while inspecting.
What is restricted in Suriname
- Satellite internet: TAS published a notice in October 2023 saying it has no agreement with Starlink, has issued it no licence and has granted it no approval to operate in Suriname. The notice tells users of the service that they are in breach of the law and risk a fine or seizure of their equipment.
Worth knowing about Suriname
- Outside a concession, holding, installing, using or running radio transmitting equipment is prohibited unless TAS has issued a licence for it. State decree may name equipment that needs no licence.
- TAS treats the 2.4 GHz band and the 5 GHz bands as licence free, so wireless networks operating in them need no frequency assignment for private or public use.
- Only terminal equipment admitted for the purpose may be connected to the telecommunications infrastructure, and selling or stocking unmarked terminal equipment on the Surinamese market in the course of business is prohibited.
How Suriname compares across South America
- Regional median
- 33.5 Mbps
- Upstream networks
- 2, Telesur, Digicel
- 5G
- Yes, on Telesur in and around Paramaribo; Digicel is LTE only
- Cities with their own page
- 1: Paramaribo
