Medellín: good signal, and the one Colombian city where stay length decides the plan

Signal along the cable lines

Medellín's Metrocable runs gondolas from the metro up into the hillside comunas, and the coverage holds along the cable lines — which is worth knowing, because the ride is one of the things people come for and it is entirely above the city rather than in it.

The drops are small and specific. Comuna 13's upper sections lose signal briefly, as do the deep interior alleyways, which is the sort of thing you notice mid-tour and then forget about. Nothing there justifies buying a different plan.

El Poblado, where most visitors and most remote workers base themselves, has strong 5G, and the coworking spaces run fast fibre. Rappi and the rest of the delivery apps work as they do anywhere in the city. The metro itself needs a Cívica card, with top-ups handled in the app, so a connection is part of getting around rather than an extra.

One genuinely local effect of the climate: Medellín sits between about 22 and 28°C the year round, so you are outdoors and walking far more than in a city with weather, and maps run more or less constantly. Whatever you would budget elsewhere, add to it.

Wi-fi cuts both ways

Medellín is a long-stay city in a way that Bogotá and Cartagena are not, and that changes the arithmetic rather than the coverage.

If you are here for a month working from El Poblado, most of your traffic goes over the coworking or apartment fibre and your mobile use is smaller than a two-week tourist's — maps, ride-hailing, delivery, messages. People routinely overbuy on that basis. On the other hand, travel eSIM plans in Colombia top out at 30 days, so a stay longer than a month means buying twice, and Colombia asks for no ID to register a prepaid SIM. That makes a local SIM an unusually easy alternative here: no passport, no form, no registration wait.

Our rule of thumb: under a month, an eSIM installed before you fly is simpler. Over a month, price a local SIM properly before you renew, because the eSIM ladder is not built for it.

What the plans cost

From our Colombia plan data, checked 13 August 2026:

The row that surprises people is the last one. Colombia's ladder does not stop at 20 GB, and going from 20 GB to 50 GB costs $8 — $49 against $41 — which takes the rate from about $2.05 a gigabyte to $0.98. For a month in Medellín with heavy map use and occasional tethering, that is the row to look at, and it is the only point in the Colombian list where the pricing works in your favour.

The indicative rows sit well below the verified ones at 5 and 10 GB. We have not read those off the providers' own sites, so they are worth checking at checkout rather than planning around.

One small thing to ignore: Airalo sells its Colombian plans under the names Chimba and Chimba+. Those are retail product names on a checkout page, not networks, and they tell you nothing about whose towers you are on. Airalo does not publish that for Colombia.

Practical notes

• Download the metro and Metrocable map offline; the cable stations are busy and the signage is thin
• Comuna 13 tours involve stairs, crowds and brief signal gaps — agree a meeting point with your guide
• Budget for constant navigation rather than occasional lookups
• If you are staying more than 30 days, compare a local SIM before renewing an eSIM

Full provider-by-provider pricing is on the Colombia hub.