Benin
Power & telecom standards in Benin
Connectivity Overview
Tempest Telecom offered dial-up internet access, WiFi hotspot access and broadband ethernet access in Benin. We also offered Iridium satellite Internet and Voice access in Benin for communications in rural areas without infrastructure.
Benin uses 220V at 50Hz. Power outlets are type C, E and telephone jacks are RJ-11.
Dial-up Internet Access
Tempest Telecom provided local dial-up access numbers in Benin at $0.255/minute. Travelers could connect using any standard modem with an RJ-11 telephone adapter.
WiFi Hotspot Access
Tempest Telecom provided WiFi hotspot access in Benin at $19.95/day for unlimited browsing.
Adapters & Power
Travelers from North America will need a power plug adapter. European Type C/F adapters are widely compatible.
Standard RJ-11 jacks are used. Most international modems will connect without an adapter.
Benin at a Glance
- Capital
- Porto-Novo
- Phone Code
- +229
- Voltage
- 220V / 50Hz
- Power Plug
- C, E
- Phone Jack
- RJ-11
- Currency
- CFA Franc
- Dial-up
- $0.255/min
- WiFi
- $19.95/day
About connectivity in Benin
Benin uses 220V/50Hz with Type C and Type E outlets — French colonial-era wiring. The phone jack is RJ-11. Benin Telecoms holds substantial fixed-line market position; MTN Benin and Moov Africa Benin compete in mobile.
Beninese commercial Internet emerged in the late 1990s through Benin Telecoms. Per-minute metered dial-up dominated. ADSL rolled out through the mid-2000s; the SAT-3/WACS underwater cables expanded international bandwidth. Mobile data dominates current access.
The Beninese prepaid international calling-card market through the 2000s served the substantial Beninese outbound diaspora — concentrated in France (the colonial-era community), the United States, and across the West African ECOWAS labor circuit.
Tempest Telecom served Benin through dial-up POPs in Cotonou. The Port of Cotonou maritime industry (a major West African trade hub serving landlocked Sahel countries), agricultural sector across the cotton belt, and humanitarian operators sustained Iridium customer demand.
Modern Benin has expanding 4G LTE coverage with FTTH concentrated in Cotonou and Porto-Novo.
Tempest's services across Benin, 1997–2012
Tempest Telecommunications operated international connectivity services in Benin between 1997 and 2012 under a unified prepaid account that absorbed multiple service types onto a single customer credential. Customers in Benin drew from the same balance for pre-paid international voice calling, RADIUS-authenticated dial-up Internet roaming, metered Wi-Fi hotspot access, Iridium and Thuraya satellite voice, and Inmarsat BGAN and Thuraya data terminals. An attempted kiosk-payment federation (PATN, 1998) extended the same architecture to public Internet terminals but failed to reach scale.
Both Iridium (global LEO) and Thuraya (regional GEO) satellite voice were available in Benin from approximately 2001, alongside global BGAN data from late 2005.
Nearby countries in Africa
Algeria · Angola · Botswana · Burkina Faso · Burundi · Cameroon · Cape Verde · Central African Republic