United Kingdom eSIM
Data for United Kingdom on EE and Three, from $5.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and you install Orbislo once rather than once per trip.
- Networks
- EE and Three
- Real speed
- 67 Mbps median, 17 Mbps for the slowest tenth3,002 travellers, rolling 90 days
- 5G
- yes, non standalone
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for United Kingdom
| 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 |
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 67 Mbps actually means in United Kingdom
Travellers on Orbislo in United Kingdom see a median download of 67 Mbps, measured across 3002 real sessions rather than a speed test we ran ourselves. That sits close to the Europe median of 71 Mbps, which makes United Kingdom an unremarkable place to be connected, in the good sense.
The tenth percentile is 17 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.
That is enough for everything most travellers do: maps, messaging, video calls, streaming at high definition, and tethering a laptop for ordinary work. It is not enough to be casual about uploading a day of raw photographs.
Which networks you will be on
Orbislo carries traffic in United Kingdom on EE and Three. 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 United Kingdom: yes, non 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 United Kingdom
A 100 MB plan for United Kingdom starts at $0.30, 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 United Kingdom it means the effective cost is nearer $0.00 a gigabyte than $0.00.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for United Kingdom 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 United Kingdom
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 United Kingdom and it attaches to EE. 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 United Kingdom
The measurements above are aggregated across United Kingdom, and a national median hides real variation. We publish separate figures for London, Edinburgh, Manchester and Bath, 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.
What is restricted in United Kingdom
- Hand-held phone while driving: Holding and using a phone, sat nav or tablet while driving brings 6 penalty points and a 200 pound fine, even when stopped in traffic or when the device is offline. Calling 999 or 112 in a genuine emergency when stopping is unsafe is allowed.
Worth knowing about United Kingdom
- EU roaming rules stopped applying in the UK on 31 December 2020, so what a British provider may charge for using a phone in the EU, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein is no longer capped and each provider sets its own approach.
- Since 1 October 2024 a UK provider has to send an automatic message when you enter another country and has to offer a bill limit, which it cannot exceed without your express consent.
- Near the Northern Ireland border a handset can lock onto the stronger signal from the other side, and providers are required to tell customers how to prevent that inadvertent roaming.
- Every new EE line starts on a moderate parental control setting that blocks 18-rated websites on the mobile network, though not on wifi. Turning it off takes a credit card age check matched to the name and address on the account.
- An EE pay as you go customer lifts the block by calling 150 with a credit card to hand, since debit cards are not accepted for the check, or by showing a passport or other photo ID in an EE store.
- 999 and 112 both reach the emergency services and cost nothing from a mobile. So do 101 for non-emergency police, 111 for urgent medical advice and 105 for a power cut.
- Numbers starting 0800 and 0808 are free from mobiles. Numbers starting 03 cost the same as ordinary landline numbers, roughly 3p to 65p a minute from a mobile, while 09 premium lines can cost up to 3.60 pounds a minute plus an access charge.
- A 999 call automatically roams onto any other network when your own provider has no signal, so an emergency call can go through where ordinary calls cannot.
- Texting 999 works only after the mobile number has been registered for emergencySMS, by texting the word register to 999 and replying yes. A new number has to be registered again, and a text takes longer than a call.
- Deaf, hard of hearing and speech-impaired callers can reach 999 through a relay assistant by dialling 18000 or tapping the 999 button in the Relay UK app.
- British Sign Language users can reach 999 through a dedicated BSL emergency video relay service, the first UK emergency service built to be fully accessible to the deaf community.
- Government emergency alerts are broadcast from masts to every compatible phone in range on any UK 4G or 5G network. They are free, need no app or sign-up, and arrive without mobile data or wifi.
- A phone connected to 2G or 3G, switched off, or on wifi only will not receive an alert. Alerts reach iPhones on iOS 14.5 or later and Android devices on Android 11 or later.
How United Kingdom compares across Europe
- Speed rank
- 28 of 47 destinations we have measured in Europe
- Regional median
- 71 Mbps
- Consistency
- The slowest tenth still reaches 25 percent of the median
- Upstream networks
- 2, EE, Three
- 5G
- Yes, non standalone
- Next fastest nearby
- Poland, 68 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Slovakia, 67 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 4: London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Bath
- tenth percentile
- 17 Mbps
- Behind these figures
- 3002 travellers, rolling 90 days
