eSIM Ecuador

You buy it right here on this page and install it before you fly. After payment an email arrives with a link and a QR code, so you tap it on Wi-Fi at home and the profile sits next to your normal SIM, dormant. Nothing is used up until you land in Quito or Guayaquil and switch data roaming on for that line.

Yes. Claro Ecuador and Movistar Ecuador both run eSIM-capable networks, and a visiting profile registers on them like any roaming phone. Your handset needs to support eSIM and must not be carrier-locked. Nothing here is closed to foreign providers, so travellers landing at Mariscal Sucre or José Joaquín de Olmedo are usually online before immigration.

It depends on how much data and how many days you need, and the price table above on this page shows every size with the current amount in your own currency. You pay once, up front, by card, and nothing after that. There is no contract behind it and no monthly charge to cancel later.

Not a Movistar contract line, no. This is a prepaid travel profile that reads both Claro Ecuador and Movistar Ecuador and settles on whichever one is actually reaching you. Getting a Movistar line of your own means a shop visit inside Ecuador, whereas this is bought online before departure with no counter involved.

Whichever of the two is stronger where you stand. The line reads Claro Ecuador and Movistar Ecuador and your phone picks by signal. There is nothing to configure: no APN to type, no profile to choose. If one gives you nothing, turn off automatic network selection and pick the other by hand.

Yes, and that is the normal way to use it. Your usual SIM stays in the phone with its data switched off, so calls and texts still reach you on your own number while the Simbye line carries the data in Ecuador. You simply set the Ecuador line as your data line.

No. Nothing is registered in Ecuador and no document is scanned at a counter, because the line was set up before you flew and your details stay with your Simbye account. A local prepaid card is different: bought in a Claro or Movistar shop, it is registered in the buyer's name at the counter.

No, this is data only and carries no +593 number. Calls and messages run through apps over the data connection, so WhatsApp calls, voice notes and video work normally. What you cannot do is receive an Ecuadorian SMS code, which some local banking and delivery services insist on.

Yes. The islands are a province of Ecuador rather than a separate network, so the same profile keeps working in Puerto Ayora, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno and Puerto Villamil, with no second purchase and no swap at the gate. Between the islands expect nothing at all: boat crossings, cruises and the uninhabited park have no mast in reach.

On the paved routes mostly yes, and Baños, Otavalo, Mindo, Montañita and Puerto López are fine. The honest gaps are the Oriente around Cuyabeno and the lodges downriver from Coca or Tena, where Yasuní is effectively offline, plus the páramo on the Quilotoa loop and the trails on Cotopaxi and Chimborazo.

No. This plan is for Ecuador, so it stops finding a network it is allowed to use the moment you cross a border. If your route carries on to Peru or Colombia, take a plan whose coverage already includes them rather than sorting it out at the border post.

Check first that data roaming is switched on for this exact line, which is by far the most common cause. Then put the phone into airplane mode, count to ten and switch it back off to force a fresh search. Still blank? Turn off automatic selection and pick the other Ecuadorian network manually.

Plan on 300 to 500 MB a day if you mostly use maps and messengers between Quito, Otavalo and Baños. Uploading photos and scrolling social lifts that to roughly 1 GB a day. Streaming video or sharing a hotspot on long Panamericana bus rides can easily double it again. Two weeks of light use lands near 5 GB.

It depends on where you travel, how much data you use and how long you stay. This one reads both Claro and Movistar, so your phone takes whichever actually reaches you in Quito, on the coast or on the road. Cloud forest and Amazon corners stay thin on any network. It is data only, with no Ecuadorian number.