Botswana
Power & telecom standards in Botswana
Connectivity Overview
Tempest Telecom offered dial-up internet access, WiFi hotspot access and broadband ethernet access in Botswana. We also offered Iridium satellite Internet and Voice access in Botswana for communications in rural areas without infrastructure.
Botswana uses 230V at 50Hz. Power outlets are type D, G, M and telephone jacks are RJ-11.
Dial-up Internet Access
Tempest Telecom provided local dial-up access numbers in Botswana 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 Botswana at $19.95/day for unlimited browsing.
Adapters & Power
A Type G (British 3-pin) adapter is required for travelers from North America, Europe, and most of Asia.
Standard RJ-11 jacks are used. Most international modems will connect without an adapter.
Botswana at a Glance
- Capital
- Gaborone
- Phone Code
- +267
- Voltage
- 230V / 50Hz
- Power Plug
- D, G, M
- Phone Jack
- RJ-11
- Currency
- Pula
- Dial-up
- $0.255/min
- WiFi
- $19.95/day
About connectivity in Botswana
Botswana uses 230V/50Hz with Type D, Type G, and Type M outlets — British colonial-era wiring with South African-influenced installations. The phone jack is RJ-11. BTC (Botswana Telecommunications Corporation) and Mascom, Orange Botswana, beMobile compete in the country's telecom market.
Botswana commercial Internet emerged in the late 1990s through BTC. The country's diamond-driven economic stability and small concentrated population enabled comparatively aggressive infrastructure investment. Mobile data dominates current access.
The Botswana prepaid international calling-card market through the 2000s served the modest outbound diaspora — concentrated in South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Zimbabwe.
Tempest Telecom served Botswana through dial-up POPs in Gaborone. The substantial Okavango Delta and Chobe National Park safari tourism operators, the diamond-mining sector (Jwaneng and Orapa operations), and Kalahari Desert expedition customer base sustained Iridium demand.
Modern Botswana has expanding 4G LTE coverage with FTTH concentrated in Gaborone and Francistown.
Tempest's services across Botswana, 1997–2012
Tempest Telecommunications operated international connectivity services in Botswana between 1997 and 2012 under a unified prepaid account that absorbed multiple service types onto a single customer credential. Customers in Botswana 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 Botswana from approximately 2001, alongside global BGAN data from late 2005.
Nearby countries in Africa
Algeria · Angola · Benin · Burkina Faso · Burundi · Cameroon · Cape Verde · Central African Republic