Uruguay eSIM
Data for Uruguay on Antel and Movistar, from $10.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and refills land on the line you already have, with nothing new to install.
- Networks
- Antel and Movistar
- Typical speed
- 48 Mbps typical, 12 Mbps at busy times
- 5G
- yes, non standalone
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for Uruguay
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $10.89 | $10.89 | |
| 3 GB | Never expires | $7.63 | $22.89 | |
| 5 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $6.98 | $34.89 | |
| 10 GB | Never expires | $5.69 | $56.89 | |
| 20 GB | Never expires | $4.94 | $98.89 |
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 48 Mbps actually means in Uruguay
Typical download speed on Orbislo in Uruguay: 48 Mbps. That puts Uruguay well above the South America median of 34 Mbps.
The tenth percentile is 12 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 Uruguay on Antel and Movistar. 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 Uruguay: 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 Uruguay
A 100 MB plan for Uruguay starts at $0.63, which is $0.01 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 Uruguay it means the effective cost is nearer $0.00 a gigabyte than $0.01.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for Uruguay 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 Uruguay
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 Uruguay and it attaches to Antel.
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 Uruguay
The figures above cover Uruguay as a whole, and a national figure hides real variation. We publish separate figures for Montevideo and Punta del Este, 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.
Worth knowing about Uruguay
- The emergency service here answers on 911. Malicious, false or joking calls to it from a fixed or mobile line draw a fine from the communications regulator of between 10 and 100 unidades reajustables, charged to whoever holds the line.
- Keeping your number when you switch operator is written into law as a right of mobile users, and every operator with a direct numbering allocation has to offer it.
How Uruguay compares across South America
- Regional typical speed
- 33.5 Mbps
- Upstream networks
- 2, Antel, Movistar
- 5G
- Yes, non standalone
- Next fastest nearby
- Brazil, 49 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Colombia, 38 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 2: Montevideo, Punta del Este
