Egypt is the most visited destination in Africa.
This should not be surprising because the country has a lot to offer.
From pyramids to temples and beaches to tasty cuisines, there is no reason to be bored in Egypt.
But the majority of Egypt is just desert and sand.
Therefore, it is crucial to have a stable connection in Egypt if you suddenly need assistance.
That is why I tried out seven travel eSIMs from various eSIM providers, such as Airalo's Giza Mobile (Egypt) eSIM, and four Egyptian SIM cards to find out which option is the best.
In most countries, getting a local SIM card is the cheapest way to stay connected (and you will have a local phone number, something you often do not get with a travel eSIM).
But installing an eSIM is quick, easy & convenient, as you do not have to queue up upon landing (after a long flight) or deal with SIM card registration requirements (such as getting your passport details captured in Egypt – mandated by law).
And travel eSIMs, like Airalo's Giza Mobile, are relatively affordable (especially compared to international roaming).
But did the Giza Mobile eSIM perform well in Egypt? Let's find out.
Original publication: 5th of February 2024. Last updated: 6th of February 2024.
Table of Contents
Airalo's List of Compatible eSIM-Supported Phones
Before I even focus on Airalo's Giza Mobile (Egypt) eSIM, does your phone support Airalo eSIMs?
If you have an eSIM-compatible smartphone, it is almost guaranteed that you can use an Airalo eSIM.
While Airalo had to certify phones in the past, almost all are supported nowadays.
As of December 2023, the phones shown in the infographic below are compatible with Airalo eSIMs:
Now we can actually focus on the Giza Mobile eSIM.
Airalo Giza Mobile (Egypt) eSIM Prices
You can get the Airalo Giza Mobile (Egypt) eSIM for between 7 USD (1 GB for 7 days) and 44 USD (10 GB for 30 days).
Below is an overview of how much each Airalo Giza Mobile eSIM costs:
- Egypt/Giza Mobile 1 GB eSIM for 7 days, costing 7 USD – most popular with Phone Travel Wiz readers
- Egypt/Giza Mobile 2 GB eSIM for 15 days, costing 12.50 USD – very popular with Phone Travel Wiz readers
- Egypt/Giza Mobile 3 GB eSIM for 30 days, costing 17.50 USD – very popular with Phone Travel Wiz readers
- Egypt/Giza Mobile 5 GB eSIM for 30 days, costing 26.50 USD
- Egypt/Giza Mobile 10 GB eSIM for 30 days, costing 44 USD
Note: Phone Travel Wiz reader popularity ranking was updated in December based on data up to the 30th of December (2023 data only). The (promotional) prices were updated on the 31st of January.
>>> Get your Airalo Giza Mobile eSIM now! <<<
The links above will bring you to the Giza Mobile eSIM product page.
And if you already have the Airalo app installed on your phone, the links will open the respective app (Android or iOS).
Regardless of the currency used in your country, Airalo will always charge you in USD (US Dollar).
If your credit/debit card charges you foreign exchange fees, get yourself a Wise Borderless Account and Debit Card.
Their fees are MUCH lower than banks and credit card companies charge you (and Wise is transparent about their fees, unlike banks).
I have saved THOUSANDS of Australian Dollars and Euros, my main currencies, when using Wise abroad when traveling compared to my debit and credit cards.
What if you buy the 5 GB Giza Mobile eSIM, as I did, and realize you need another 3 GB of data close to exhausting your data allowance?
Would you need to purchase a new eSIM? Not at all.
You can top up your Airalo Giza Mobile eSIM for the same amount of data and prices as listed earlier.
The 3 GB top-up would still cost 17.50 USD as if you bought the 3 GB eSIM from the start.
That way, you will never run out of data.
A handful of Airalo eSIMs do not allow for top-ups. But that does not apply to the Giza Mobile eSIM – so worry not.
You can top-up on the Airalo website or its apps.
And if you buy a top-up before you have fully exhausted your data allowance, Airalo will not use your top-up yet.
As a result, the validity of the top-up will not start until you start using the top-up data (which is not the case with all travel eSIMs).
>>> Get your Airalo Giza Mobile eSIM now! <<<
My Airalo Giza Mobile eSIM in Egypt Experience
Travel eSIMs, including the Egypt eSIM, roam on the networks of local mobile operators.
Airalo is not a mobile (network) operator (MNO), so it partners with various MNOs, which roam on local MNOs' networks.
Okay, that may sound a bit confusing – all you need to know is that you will be treated as a guest on one of the Egyptian mobile networks while using another network to make this system work.
Airalo's Egypt eSIM uses the Orange Egypt network while being powered by Edge Mobile LLC/AT& T from the United States (so your phone, some apps, or sites you visit may claim you are on Edge Mobile LLC instead of Airalo – that is correct).
First things first… 5G NR was unavailable when I was in Egypt (November 2023).
So, the numbers and results later may seem (embarrassingly) slow if you are used to 5G NR speeds.
The Egyptian mobile operators cover practically all populated areas of Egypt, with an availability of 95.3% or more, according to Opensignal.
But if we focus on 4G/LTE availability, Vodafone Egypt is leading the pack (87.5%), followed by WE by Telecom Egypt (86.6%), Orange Egypt (85.5%) & Etisalat Egypt (78.1%).
How are speeds in Egypt?
According to Speedtest/Ookla, the differences are minimal.
Etisalat was the fastest mobile operator in Q1 of 2023, with a median download speed of 27.14 Mbps.
It even won the Speedtest Fast Mobile Network Q1-Q2 2023 award.
It was followed by Vodafone (24.37 Mbps), We by Telecom Egypt (24.28 Mbps) & Orange (22.62 Mbps).
The ranking changes slightly when we focus on median upload speeds.
Etisalat is still on top (9.83 Mbps), but We by Telecom Egypt is #2 (8.68 Mbps), Orange #3 (7.78 Mbps) & Vodafone the slowest (5.82 Mbps).
The report also looked at speeds in Alexandria specifically, where the order for median download speeds was almost the same: Etisalat (34.37 Mbps), Vodafone (24.58 Mbps), Orange (18.44 Mbps) & WE by Telecom Egypt (17.83 Mbps).
Let's see if I could replicate or outdo these results in Alexandria 😎.
I did speed tests with the Speedtest app throughout Alexandria and Cairo.
For reference, I consider an average download speed of 25 Mbps and an average upload speed of 10 Mbps fast enough.
Why is that? A more than 25 Mbps download speed is enough to video stream content @ 4k resolution.
Social media sites that do live streaming, like Facebook Live, recommend an upload speed of at least 10 Mbps.
I have way higher standards, but not everyone demands a download speed of 500 Mbps 🤪.
In the section below, you will find various colors and formatting.
Results in dark green mean that the result was the fastest download or upload among all SIM cards and travel eSIMs I tested at that location.
Whereas results in light green were the fastest download or upload within the category (among all SIM cards OR all travel eSIMs) but not the fastest when considering the other category.
The same applies to dark red and light orange results – the slowest download or upload among all (dark red) or the slowest within a category (light orange).
All underlined results are on 5G NR, while results in italics are on 3G – results without additional formatting are on 4G/LTE.
That should clear up the colorful speed test results in the next section.
For now, let's see how the Airalo Giza Mobile eSIM performed in Alexandria and Cairo.
>>> Get your Airalo Giza Mobile eSIM now! <<<
Airalo Giza Mobile (Egypt) eSIM in Alexandria & Cairo Test Results
I used my Airalo Giza Mobile (Egypt) eSIM in Alexandria and Cairo.
But I tested it mainly in Alexandria because I was supposed to stay there only.
We, Jakub and I, were supposed to fly into Alexandria and leave from its airport (HBE). Turkish Airlines canceled our original arrival flight and pushed it by a day. As we already had a short time in Egypt, we decided to fly to Cairo International Airport (CAI) instead. But it is a three-hour drive from Cairo to Alexandria, so the arrival day was mostly wasted. The same happened in terms of departure, making us lose out on another precious three hours (driving back to Cairo) and having to deal with a much longer process time at CAI airport (HBE is much smaller, so the queues are short). So I was not supposed to be in Cairo. Hence, the fewer number of tests done there.
All Airalo eSIMs, Giza Mobile, Menalink (Middle East – Egypt review) & Discover+ (global – Egypt review), used the Orange Egypt network (although all were powered by different providers).
The same applies to the Nomad Egypt eSIM (product page).
The Alosim Egypt eSIM (product page) was powered by the same provider as the Giza Mobile eSIM (Edge Mobile LLC), but it defaulted on Vodafone Egypt instead (not an option for the Airalo eSIM).
So, the next section will mainly compare the Airalo Giza Mobile eSIM with Orange, Airalo Menalink, Airalo Discover+, Alosim Egypt & Nomad Egypt.
Below are the results:
Fair speeds with the Airalo Giza Mobile eSIM.
While Egypt has a robust mobile network in populated, you should not expect the speeds you can get in other parts of the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) area, especially Gulf states.
The United Arab Emirates, Qatar & Kuwait dominate the leaderboard, having median download speeds of 303.21 Mbps, 244.44 Mbps & 183.83 Mbps, respectively (December 2023 data).
Egypt was on spot 109 (22.22 Mbps) of 146, so it is one of the worst.
It was not even close to the global median of 49.25 Mbps (only 50 countries did, and none were African).
Anyway, let's focus on the Giza Mobile results.
It was actually the best-performing eSIM in terms of download speeds, with an average of 27.01 Mbps.
The eSIM was also the fastest among all (SIM cards and eSIMs) at the Terminal 2 departures hall of Cairo International Airport (CAI), with a download speed of 39.68 Mbps.
But that was not the fastest speed I got with the eSIM, which was at Citadel of Qaitbay (73.95 Mbps).
Only Orange itself was faster here, but not by a lot (75.82 Mbps).
The Giza Mobile eSIM was faster than other eSIMs at a whopping seven test locations (of 17), showing how well it performed.
10.03 Mbps at Alexandria Library, 19.34 at Gate E2 (Terminal 2) at Cairo International Airport (CAI) & 73.95 Mbps at Citadel of Qaitbay, as mentioned earlier.
Reception was terrible at the library, so I do not blame that low result.
Then we have 56.40 Mbps at Designia Mall and 13.40 Mbps at Fish Market Marina.
Cellular reception was close to non-existent at the the restaurant (Fish Market Marina), and most eSIMs performed poorly here.
Finally, 29.95 Mbps at Novotel Cairo Airport and 70.17 Mbps at an Ola Gas Station (I forgot which one 💀).
Airalo's Giza Mobile eSIM did so well that it never had the slowest download speed (among all).
But the story is different when we look at upload speeds, where it was the slowest at six locations.
With a median upload speed of 1.30 Mbps (average 3.07 Mbps), the Giza Mobile eSIM was among the poorer performers.
Hold on for a second… because I want to let you know that most eSIMs had terrible upload speeds in Egypt, so it is not a Giza Mobile issue.
Ten results had upload speeds of under 2 Mbps and 14 under 5 Mbps.
The best upload result was 19.14 Mbps at Serapeum of Alexandria – almost double the download speed (10.99 Mbps).
So, if you need to livestream your travels all day for some reason… reconsider it 🗿.
The only Egypt eSIM that had a similar acceptable performance as the Giza Mobile eSIM was Alosim's (product page).
Its eSIM was also powered by Edge Mobile LLC, but I was on the Vodafone network instead (but you can change it to Orange).
The average upload speed was slightly lower than Giza Mobile's – 24.36 Mbps.
Nomad's Egypt eSIM (product page) did okay (average of 17.20 Mbps) on the Orange network, but it was powered by a provider from Hong Kong.
So far, I have not said anything positive about the other two Airalo eSIMs: Menalink (Middle East) and Discover+ (global).
Well… that is because there is nothing positive to say about these eSIMs regarding Egypt.
Straight-up: there were terrible 💀.
I will not bore you about them in this review (but you can check out their individual reviews linked earlier).
But I can tell you that you do not want to use them in Egypt (specifically).
However, if you are visiting multiple countries in Africa or the Middle East, consider Nomad's Africa (product page) or Middle East (product page) eSIMs instead.
I used the African one in Egypt because the Middle East variant did not cover Egypt, and it did well in the country (by Egyptian standards).
But also in the other African/Middle Eastern countries I visited on this trip.
However, if you want an eSIM that does its job well in Egypt, Airalo's Giza Mobile will be one of the best options.
>>> Get your Airalo Giza Mobile eSIM now! <<<
My Overall Experience with the Airalo Giza Mobile eSIM in Egypt – Is It Worth Your Money?
I would recommend the Airalo Giza Mobile (Egypt), and it would be one of my top eSIM recommendations for anyone wanting to buy an eSIM for Egypt.
Getting the Airalo Giza Mobile eSIM or any other Airalo eSIM is extremely easy.
Airalo is one of the few eSIM providers that allow you to install an eSIM directly to your phone (without the need to scan a QR code – Android only), which makes the installation process a piece of cake (hence, I did not spend any time on how to install in this review – it is easy!).
Moreover, you do not have to adjust the APN settings with the Airalo Giza Mobile eSIM, making it more manageable.
In other news, Airalo's Giza Mobile eSIMs were the more affordable eSIMs I tested on this trip while having the most options to choose from (1 GB, 2 GB, 3 GB, 5 GB & 10 GB (fairly new)).
You get access to the Orange Egypt network, which is in the middle in terms of performance (it has one of the best coverage but the slowest speeds, according to reports).
I got an average download speed of 27.01, the fastest of the seven eSIMs I tested.
And in terms of coverage, I had no issues with the Giza Mobile eSIM on the Orange network.
This is interesting because my Orange SIM card did have reception issues while on the go in a car (but no stationary).
Most other Egypt-specific eSIMs, such as Alosim (product page) and Nomad (product page), also performed well (on Vodafone and Orange, respectively).
But the other Airalo eSIMs I used, Menalink (Middle East – Egypt review) and Discover+ (global – Egypt review), were terrible in the country 🗿.
But yes, if you need an eSIM for Egypt only, the Giza Mobile eSIM is a fantastic option.
>>> Get your Airalo Giza Mobile eSIM now! <<<