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Flag of Saint Helena

Basics[]

Saint Helena is an island and is part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic about halfway between Africa and South America. Even though it belongs to the same territory as Ascension Island, the mobile networks are separate and hence it merits a separate article.

It's not part of the EU, so EU roaming caps don't apply and providers charge a very high price for roaming. It has roaming agreements with very few providers so far, not even all providers from the UK. That's why it will be much more likely that your device won't roam there at all. The island has no submarine cable link and all the communications go through a relatively narrow band satellite channel. So expect low speeds (even on 4G/LTE), high latency and very high prices.

The government of Saint Helena has inked a contract with Google to connect the island nation to Phase 1 of the Equiano cable project, which will initially link Lisbon (Portugal) to Cape Town in South Africa, with planned branches to other African countries. The branch between the main trunk of the Equiano cable and Saint Helena is 1,140 km long and with the connection on 1 October 2023, has resulted in significantly lower prices.

The first and so far only network operator started in 2015:

  • Sure South Atlantic Ltd.

It operates a 2G/GSM/EDGE on 900 MHz and LTE on 1800 MHz (band 3). Note that there is no 3G/UMTS, so if you want data, you need a phone that supports LTE band 3 or you'll be limited to slow 2G/EDGE speeds.

Sure[]

Sure telecom

Sure by Sure South Atlantic Ltd is a triple player offering landline, cable television and mobile broadband services on the island. In 2015 it started the only network covering 95% of the island in 2G and 4G/LTE: coverage map (Note that red unintuitively means "very good signal")

Availability[]

A SIM card costs £16.50 with £10 included. It's sold at their at their service centre at Jamestown, in airport kiosk and other places. Dial *170# to activate sim card.

Top-ups are available from different stores (for list scroll to "What vendors are selling Top Up cards?"). To top-up dial *177*<CODE>#

The SIM card has an initial validity of 60 days and then "the validity is extended to 60 days every time a charge is debited against the pay as you go credit balance".

Data rates[]

Default data rate is now a much lower £2 per GB. They offer 2 data bundles:

  • 5 GB for £10.
  • 10 GB for £20.

Note that the data bundles come to the same as the out-of-bundle rate, so there is generally no reason to commit to buying more data at once over paying as you use it.

More info[]

  • Website: http://www.sure.co.sh/
  • Tariff details
  • Balance check: dial *178#
  • APN for prepaid (make sure you put it allcaps): SURESHL
  • Mobile helpline: 111
  • This network is separate from Sure on Ascension Island, subject to roaming fees.
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