Does Uruguay Support eSIM | Compatible Devices & Local Networks List

Apr 25, 2026

Uruguay fully supports eSIM!

  • Network: Both Antel and Movistar provide services.
  • Devices: Compatible with iPhone 11+, Samsung S20+, Pixel 3+.
  • Tourists: Recommended to buy traffic packages such as Airalo (about $8/GB), scan the code to connect upon landing.

Local Networks in Uruguay

Antel

Records from the Regulatory Unit of Communications Services of Uruguay show that Antel occupies 47.8% of the mobile communication market share in the entire territory. They have built more than 4200 physical towers nationwide. Nearly 80% of them have been replaced with LTE-Advanced equipment.

Eight to ten o’clock in the evening is the peak period for internet surfing, and the network speed in the Pocitos residential area of Montevideo is very stable. Taking an iPhone 14 connected to the Band 4 frequency band for measurement, the download speed jumps between 45 and 55 Mbps, and the upload remains at 12 to 18 Mbps.

Driving east along Ruta Interbalnearia, the network will almost not disconnect all the way, with the signal gap being less than 1.5%. When the car speed reaches 110 kilometers per hour and stops at the Atlántida rest area, the mobile phone background playing Spotify music at 320kbps does not lag at all.

Massive data travels through a submarine cable called Tannat. This line is buried under the Atlantic Ocean, with a total length of about 2000 kilometers and a bandwidth reaching 90 Tbps. The latency for browsing webpages across borders is pressed very low.

Mobile communication relies on these four frequency bands to switch back and forth:

  • 700 MHz (Band 28): Strong penetration, reaching inland farms
  • AWS (Band 4): Handling over 70% of internet requests in main urban areas
  • 1900 MHz (Band 2): Backup for old mobile phone models
  • 3.5 GHz (n78): Newly opened 5G high frequency band

Driving into the Pampas grassland along National Highway 5, the more than 100 kilometers road from Florida to Durazno is very empty. The 700 MHz frequency band sends radio waves to independent farmsteads 15 kilometers away from the highway, and two bars of 4G signal can still be seen on the mobile phone.

85% of places in remote pastoral areas of Tacuarembó can connect to the network. Ranchers put locators equipped with IoT SIM cards on cattle herds, sending 50KB of location data every hour, and the packet loss rate over a year is less than 0.1%.

On June 27, 2023, the first batch of Nokia and Ericsson 5G antennas worth 50 million dollars was put into use. 100 5G nodes lit up on the main streets of 19 provincial capital cities. The download peak in the old city of Colonia del Sacramento reached 850 Mbps.

There are several places where the terrain is complex, and building iron towers took a lot of effort:

  • Cabo Polonio: Installing microwave relays at the highest point of the sand dunes
  • La Paloma: Many seaside storms, the tower wind resistance rating reaches level 15
  • Termas del Salto: Installed a bunch of micro antennas, enough for thousands of people to connect to the net together
  • Rivera Border: Hard-coded system parameters to block Brazilian roaming requests

In January, Punta del Este will see an influx of over 400,000 tourists. Internet requests at Mansa and Brava beaches surge by 300%. Operators drive 15 emergency vehicles there at the end of December, releasing an extra 10 Gbps of network speed.

Tourists use Instagram to live stream surfing on the beach, with Ping values between 25 and 35 milliseconds. 99.8% of text messages at ten-thousand-person music festival sites can be sent out, and only uploading large photos requires queuing for 3 to 5 seconds.

The travel eSIM card you buy online has the configuration file written long ago. Activating a 14-day internet card on a third-party platform, the phone will automatically look for the network with MCC/MNC as 748-01.

The underlying equipment docking has these several hard settings:

  • ICCID recognizes numbers starting with 89598
  • Mobile APN automatically writes antel.data
  • VoLTE can recognize 90% of unlocked mobile phones worldwide
  • Traffic is settled with overseas card issuers by MB

Movistar Uruguay

The data reports from the regulatory agency write very clearly that this operating company with a Spanish background holds 1.85 million mobile phone numbers. They handle 31.6% of local communication business. The old 3G iron towers rely on the 850 MHz frequency band to cover 92% of the land. The massive 4G traffic used by everyone for brushing videos is all crowded on these two invisible aerial roads of 1900 MHz and AWS.

Go to Plaza Independencia at twelve o’clock noon to join the fun. Taking a Pixel 7 phone equipped with a local traffic card for measurement, the download runs to 38.5 Mbps, upload 11.2 Mbps, and latency 28 milliseconds. The signal for cross-border internet surfing runs along a submarine cable called SAm-1. This 25,000-kilometer-long undersea line specifically separates a fiber with a width of 20 Tbps for the local area.

The machine room is stuffed with commercial routers. Every day, 4.5 PB of photos and short videos traverse through it, and the chance of signal loss is pressed below 0.05%. The underlying data transceiving strictly follows several hard rules:

  • The signal transmission distance of large iron towers is stuck within 3.5 kilometers
  • 15% of the machine room bandwidth is set aside for backup at the eight o’clock peak at night
  • Iron towers on wilderness hills are all equipped with large lead-acid batteries that can last 8 hours

Drive on National Highway 1 to Colonia. More than 120 physical iron towers are erected on the 177-kilometer road to send signals to mobile phones in turn. When the car drives at 90 kilometers per hour, the passenger watching 1080p YouTube videos on the phone does not lag at all. Roughly every 2.5 minutes, the background system quietly helps you change to a closer iron tower.

National Highway 9 along the sea to the east has a blue-painted signal tower every 15 kilometers. Usually only 800 people live in the seaside small town Punta del Diablo. February holidays suddenly see an influx of 25,000 tourists holding mobile phones. The original 5 base stations simply cannot hold up, and network maintenance personnel will drive 3 signal vehicles to stop in the town in advance to save the scene.

Tourists swipe cards to settle accounts at beach bars, and the POS machine connected to the wireless network checks the password with the bank in 2 seconds. When encountering crowded situations, the machine room will activate several backup operation instructions:

  • Raise the antenna transmission power of the AWS frequency band
  • Limit the network speed upper limit of a single mobile phone to 20 Mbps
  • When encountering devices desperately uploading large files, the system quietly cuts off the upload channel

Chuy is a town spanning the boundary line. The south side of the street belongs to Uruguay, and the north side is Brazil. Walking on the south street, the phone firmly bites the 1900 MHz signal. The underlying code has anti-roaming instructions written; no matter how full the signal of the Brazilian Vivo iron tower in the north is, the phone will not send a connection request, and you won’t even spend a cent on cross-border roaming fees.

Most travel internet packages bought online rely on this company’s antennas to provide the network. After paying, the phone will download a small 45 KB file. The underlying docking parameters have already been written in the file:

  • The phone antenna only recognizes towers with MCC/MNC code 748-07
  • Dynamic IP addresses for internet access are all handed over to the machine room in Madrid for allocation
  • Making voice calls is forced back to the old voice channel of the past

Claro Uruguay

The URSEC ledger at the end of the year records that the Amérvica Mórvil group separated 20.6% of the communication business in Uruguay. 1.15 million SIM cards that can dial normally are connected in the machine room. Usually, the signals received by the phone are all crowded on the Band 4 and Band 28 frequency bands.

Sit on a bench on the first floor of the Punta Carretas shopping mall in Montevideo and take out the phone for measurement. The download speed runs to 22.5 Mbps and stops, and the upload stops at 6.4 Mbps. The latency screen connected to the Miami server in the US shows as 38 milliseconds.

Data for cross-border internet access is all stuffed into the submarine cable called AMX-1. This line is 17,800 kilometers long, connecting 7 countries in South America together, with a total capacity reaching 50 Tbps.

Those 60-centimeter-thick granite exterior walls in the old city block signals, and high-frequency radio waves of 1900 MHz cannot penetrate at all.

Engineering personnel have set several dead rules in the main urban area to remedy:

  • In blocks with dense buildings, a signal pole is erected every 400 meters
  • Micro antennas from Ericsson are hung in all signal dead corners indoors
  • The addressing records of the router are forced to be cleared once at two o’clock every morning

Taking a traffic card to Carrasco Airport, 15 small base stations are stuffed into the ceiling of T1 Terminal. Turn off flight mode and wait for 8 seconds to find the net. Watching a 45-minute Netflix episode of ordinary definition, 450 MB of traffic runs off in the background.

Drive out of the city northeast along National Highway 8. After driving 45 kilometers, the top of the phone screen silently drops to HSPA+. Only the 3G signal of 850 MHz of the roadside iron tower is still working, and the actual download speed barely runs to 1.2 Mbps.

Spending 150 Uruguayan Pesos can buy a small weekend card with 3GB traffic. A line of whitelist code is knocked in the billing background; sending WhatsApp messages and making voice calls all do not deduct digits from these 3GB.

Travel cards bought online will stuff a small 35 KB file into the phone. The docking password inside is written dead; the antenna in mid-air only recognizes tower signals with MCC/MNC as 748-10.

The underlying few lines of network parameters are explained very clearly:

  • The APN website is dead-locked at igprs.claro.com.uy
  • IP addresses of roaming phones are thrown to the machine room in Buenos Aires, Argentina to be sent
  • Buffering requests for watching local videos are all thrown to the machine room in São Paulo for processing

5G signals are not paved on the streets; forty thousand people crowded together to watch a ball game, the chance of the 4G channel queuing to death will soar to 15%.

Is My Phone Compatible

Device without Network Lock

The mobile phone comes with a set of identification rules from the factory. The exclusive communication code for local networks in Uruguay is 748. Phones restricted by specific communication companies will refuse to receive that 10KB download file from the Antel network, and an error warning pops up on the screen.

iPhone 15 sold by Verizon comes with a 60-day background control period. Within the 1st to 59th day after purchase, it only recognizes the 311 signal code of the US mainland. Bringing it to land at Carrasco Airport and forcibly scanning the QR code of Claro, what the system pops up is a series of English error reports.

The requirements of AT&T are even more complicated. Postpaid users must settle the final payment, and prepaid users must wait for enough 6 months. After submitting the unbinding application, it takes 24 to 48 hours for the release instruction to arrive at the cloud database of Apple or Google.

  • Review T-Mobile devices: Connected to net for full 40 days
  • Review Cricket Wireless: Continuous payment for 6 months
  • Review EE UK: Bill purchase record full 180 days
  • Review Optus Australia: Top-up full 80 AUD

Unopened mobile phones taken from the shelves of Best Buy or Target come with a set of blank pass rules. The moment the first physical card is inserted into the card slot, this phone permanently belongs to that communication company.

The deep system of Samsung Galaxy S23 hides blocking settings. Even if the US version phone comes with a 32-bit exclusive identification code, when downloading Movistar data packets, the progress bar often stays stuck at the 15% position.

Street repair shops used to use card stickers with microchips to deceive the system. Apple blocked this 20-digit false number vulnerability in the iOS 17.4.1 version; if an anomaly is found in the cloud, the download channel will be cut off immediately.

Enter #06# on the dial pad to get that 15-digit IMEI number on the screen. Spend 2 to 3 dollars to find a third-party inquiry website to fill in the digits, and within 5 minutes, the mailbox will receive an inspection report containing 4 parameters.

  • Initial: original factory setting
  • Applied: current running status
  • Next Tether: next binding status
  • Unbricked: flashing or modification records

The Next Tether line in the report writes Unlock, proving that the phone can be used in any corner of the world. Sitting in the hotel lobby of Punta del Este and connecting to Wi-Fi, the phone can complete docking with the base station 3 kilometers away in 5 seconds.

Discount communication companies such as Mint Mobile write restrictions into the extremely deep hardware storage area. Clearing phone data with computer software, as long as the purchase has not been full 12 months, it still cannot read network signals from other countries.

The brand-new Pixel 8 bought in the London Vodafone store has no red tape. Landing in Uruguay, skip the application procedures, and you can immediately fit in a local package containing 5GB traffic.

Uruguay’s network runs on B2, B4, and the 700 MHz B28 signal frequency bands. For Japanese mobile phones that spend 3000 Yen to lift restrictions, the antenna hardware design leans towards local frequency bands in Asia.

Taking a Japanese version phone to small inland towns in Uruguay, there are often only one or two bars of signal on the screen. Without the support of B28 low-frequency antenna, walking inside large shopping malls will completely disconnect from the net.

  • Prompt “Unable to complete change”: Find the original company to clear the device blacklist
  • Interface stuck at “Activating”: Change to a fast Wi-Fi and download again
  • Prompt “Invalid configuration”: Check the last 4 digits filled in
  • Full signal bars but no network speed: Enter the settings menu and manually input the APN address

Transferring the number from T-Mobile to Verizon will generate a 72-hour handover period. Adding an overseas traffic pack to the phone during these three days, the system has an extremely high probability of prompting identity authentication failure.

The barcode label on the back of the packaging box is printed with “VZW” or “ATT” words; go to the corresponding official website to fill in the phone number. That string of verification codes containing letters sent by the customer service system is the key to unlocking the phone’s read-write restrictions.

eSIM Hardware Support

Open the phone dial pad and press #06#, the screen will pop up a long string of device identification codes. Look for a set of EID barcodes composed of 32 digits. As long as you see a long string of numbers starting with 8904, it means the motherboard is welded with a micro communication chip that complies with GSMA standards. If the screen only has 15-digit IMEI and 14-digit MEID numbers, you can only honestly find Antel stores to buy plastic cards when going to Uruguay.

This tiny block is manufactured by STMicroelectronics or NXP factories, with a length and width of only 2 mm. In a fully enclosed dust-free workshop, the mechanical arm uses high temperature of 260 degrees Celsius to permanently weld it next to the motherboard radio frequency chip. It completely abandons that metal contact design of the past, and the battery power consumed every day is less than one-tenth of traditional plastic cards.

Apple stuffed this micro component into iPhone XS and XR produced in 2018. The iPhone 14 produced in North America has even completely wiped out the external card slot. The 15 cubic millimeters space saved in the fuselage is all given to the 3279 mAh battery and vibration motor. The US version iPhone 15 can store 8 network data packets inside from the factory.

Landing in Montevideo with a phone full of 8 files, you can pick any two to let them run together. Click a few times in the system menu, the newly bought Claro package starts running 5G traffic to surf the net. The other option keeps the US number running the 2G frequency band, specifically used for receiving the 6-digit verification code SMS sent by Citibank.

  • Southeast Asian version iPhone 13: Keeps physical card slot matched with internal chip on motherboard
  • Middle Eastern version iPhone 12: Some batches are factory-locked with baseband write instructions
  • Canadian version iPhone 15: Single card slot next to which is attached a complete 32-digit barcode
  • European release models: Standard dual-card dual-standby matched with internal micro data chip

The Samsung Galaxy production line used the plug-free design as early as the S20 era. On A54 or A34 phones sold in the Latin American region, the motherboard keeps a plastic base for dual-sided card insertion, forcibly cutting the flexible cable between the motherboard and internal micro components. Buying Samsung equipment in the second-hand market in Chile or Argentina, scanning the local network QR code, the interface will only continuously pop up network acquisition failure warnings.

Google Pixel 2 once took this hardware to experiment for the Project Fi network. Pixel 3 made it a factory standard, and later machines added multi-configuration rotation functions. Walking on the beach of Punta del Este with a Pixel 8 equipped with Android 14 system, the phone cuts off low frequency bands without signal in 2 seconds and connects to the nearby 4G tower.

Severe bumps, falls, or falling into water will knock the components on the motherboard out of false soldering. Input the check code, the screen stays stuck for 5 seconds before jumping out the 32-digit barcode, and sometimes a string of English letters that are all zeros will pop up. The 0.1 microfarad capacitor responsible for power supply was broken down by current; finding a roadside repair shop to spend 50 dollars to re-solder with tin is the only repair method.

  • Motorola Razr: Early flip models only support no-card-slot writing
  • Sony Xperia 1 V: Japanese version 54 firmware limited to scanning local base stations
  • ASUS ROG Phone: Completely cutting off this module to make space for vapor chamber heat dissipation
  • Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5: Folding hinge forces motherboard antenna to re-route and arrange

Find text with a blue plus sign in Apple’s cellular network menu. The path for Android phones is hidden in the SIM card manager of connection options. If you can’t flip to “add mobile plan” words, desperately pressing the power button to restart the phone won’t make the option appear. The factory drawings didn’t draw that 2 mm block, and spending half an hour flashing in a 2GB upgrade package cannot change the fact of missing hardware.

This micro particle internally has only 512KB of physical storage capacity. Filling it with 8 to 10 national data packets, the lowest storage space is stuffed full. Preparing to scan the code to add the 11th local Uruguayan package, the screen will jump a red system warning, forcing you to manually delete idle expired files.

Long press the old package label and click erase, freeing up 10KB of space, and then the download progress bar of the new configuration starts to move. Amazon’s second-hand refurbished area is mixed with a large number of third-party assembled machines. Merchants put together the US version motherboard with an intact screen and Latin American version frame with an unbroken back cover. The machine comes with a real string of 32-digit barcode, but assembly workers are extremely likely to miss small coaxial cables.

  • Clear old data packets: Release 512KB particle internal storage capacity
  • Reset network settings: Clear messy records in the system background within 30 days
  • Check antenna cables: Open the back cover and press down the detached metal flexible cables
  • Upgrade baseband firmware: Fix digital signature error reports of old iOS versions

How to Get an eSIM for Uruguay

Purchase & Activation

Go to the app store to search for Airalo or Holafly, the software download size is between 85MB and 160MB. Pick a 1GB traffic pack for Uruguay, priced at 7 to 9 dollars. Fill in the 16-digit Visa or Mastercard card number for payment, or use Apple Pay. Wait for 3 seconds after payment, the registration mailbox will receive a confirmation letter with a 1.5MB PDF file.

A QR code is printed in the middle of the PDF file. Bottom part writes two rows of about 45 characters of backup code. The first half is the SM-DP+ address, looking like rsp.truphone.com. The second half is a 32-digit combination of numbers and letters, kept for manual input when scanning code fails.

Downloading the configuration requires finding a password-free Wi-Fi with a network speed above 2Mbps; changing to connect to a 5GHz frequency band hotspot of a companion also works. Turn off the VPN in the background before installation. Proxy nodes will change the phone’s real IP address, triggering a system report of 102 error, and the download progress bar will stay stuck at 20% without moving.

  • Apple phones click the grey settings icon and enter the cellular network menu.
  • Click the add eSIM option with a plus sign.
  • Select use QR code at the very bottom of the screen.
  • The rear lens aims at the QR code on the other phone screen for 1.5 seconds.
  • The screen circles for 45 seconds and jumps a prompt of successful addition.

The system requires giving the new package a name of more than 5 characters, typing UY2026 as a label. Set the old physical card for answering calls and the newly built card specifically for surfing the net. Turn off the switch that allows switching cellular data to prevent two cards from using traffic and being cross-charged.

  • Pixel 8 with Android 15 system clicks Network and Internet in settings.
  • Click add network with a plus sign on the right.
  • Select download eSIM option to call out camera lens.
  • After scanning the QR code in PDF, the system spends 30 seconds checking the network.
  • Download the configuration to the phone, it takes 60 seconds to run through the progress bar.

Before getting on the plane, turn off the roaming switch of the main card usually used. Landing at Carrasco International Airport, turn off flight mode. The phone starts to look for local frequency bands of 1900 MHz or 700 MHz. The signal bar in the upper left corner of the screen first becomes 3G, and after two minutes jumps to LTE symbol, and the network speed can run to 25Mbps.

If the phone has been staying on E net and cannot connect, look at the settings of the newly added package. Turn on the data roaming switch. Virtual cards rely on roaming protocols to connect to the base stations of local Antel operators in Uruguay. Opening the roaming option can let the phone access 4G frequency bands.

Connected to signal but unable to open webpages, go to the cellular network menu to build a new APN. In the two boxes of Name and APN, fill in the 8 to 12 English letters given in the email, like globaldata or wbdata. Click save in the upper right corner and exit to use.

Dual cards on standby at the same time, the phone power consumption is 15% to 20% more than a single card. Enter battery options and open low power mode to stop the action of chat software refreshing in the background every 5 minutes. Opening power saving mode can eke out three hours of extra screen-on time for a phone with a 4000mAh capacity.

  • 2GB traffic is enough for Google Maps to run offline for 80 hours.
  • Listening to Spotify with 320kbps sound quality costs 144MB per hour.
  • Sending 5,000 pure text WhatsApp messages won’t spend 25MB.
  • Don’t watch Netflix in places without Wi-Fi, 1080P burns 3GB per hour.

Landing Activation

The plane lands at Carrasco Airport and taxies on the runway for 8 minutes. Turn off the phone flight mode, the screen will initially show no service. The phone antenna is desperately looking for local signals of 1900 MHz and 700 MHz with 2W power.

Wait for a minute or two, and the 3G sign will emerge at the top of the screen. The underlying chip is matching secret codes with base stations of Antel or Movistar. After another 45 seconds it jumps to LTE, only then can the phone get a local website address.

Test the speed in the airport hall, download is about 35Mbps, upload can run 12Mbps. Take a 30-minute taxi to the city center old town, along the way the signal will change back and forth between full bars and two bars.

After waiting for 5 minutes and still no net, enter the cellular network panel of the phone. Turn off that automatic switch in network selection. The screen circles for 30 seconds and brushes out a pure text list of Antel, Movistar, and Claro.

Manually click Antel to firmly bite this net with the highest coverage. Going to Colonia along National Highway 1 for 177 kilometers, there are many roadside base stations, and listening to Spotify playlists doesn’t lag at all.

Clearly full LTE bars but cannot open webpages, go to settings to check if APN letters are filled correctly. Even if one letter is filled wrong, the base station firewall will kick the phone offline.

Virtual Card Brand What to fill in APN box Username and Password Roaming Switch
Airalo globaldata leave blank must turn on
Holafly holafly leave blank must turn on
Nomad truphone.com leave blank must turn on
Ubigi mbb leave blank must turn on

Confirm the letters are not misspelled, click the upper left corner to return and save. Retreat to the desktop, turn on flight mode for 5 seconds and then turn it off. The phone reconnects to the base station, and all the red dots of chat software that were held back pop out.

When the iPhone jumps an iMessage binding box, don’t click randomly. Asking you whether to change the number to the new Uruguay card, you must select No. Clicking wrong and sending an international SMS deducts 0.15 dollars.

Opening WhatsApp jumps a change number prompt, select keep the original number. The account is still your original number, and chat records are not missing at all. 1GB traffic is enough to send 15,000 pure text messages, taking dozens of pictures without pressure.

There is free Wi-Fi outside the airport duty-free shop, but the connected speed is only 1.5Mbps. If you can’t connect to the net no matter what, rub this net to find customer service and send the first 8 digits of the EID code to them to refresh the background node.

Uruguay summer outdoor 32 degrees Celsius. Dual-card dual-standby makes the phone back soar to 38 degrees. Under high temperature the battery can’t hold up, and the 4500mAh phone will drop to 20% and light red light before 4 o’clock in the afternoon.

  • Turn off background refresh, don’t let Instagram secretly download 5MB videos every 10 minutes.
  • Turn off photo cloud sync, don’t let 12-million-pixel original photos upload and eat up traffic.
  • Change positioning to only allow during use, saving 150mA current consumed by GPS module all day.
  • Change mailbox to manual refresh, and 2MB background loss can be eked out in an hour.