Equatorial Guinea
Power & telecom standards in Equatorial Guinea
Connectivity Overview
Tempest Telecom offered satellite-only service in Equatorial Guinea. Iridium satellite Internet and Voice access was available for communications in rural areas without infrastructure.
Equatorial Guinea uses 220V at 50Hz. Power outlets are type C, E and telephone jacks are RJ-11.
Dial-up Internet Access
Dial-up access was not available in Equatorial Guinea. Satellite Internet was the recommended alternative.
WiFi Hotspot Access
WiFi hotspot access was not available through Tempest in Equatorial Guinea.
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.
Equatorial Guinea at a Glance
- Capital
- Malabo
- Phone Code
- +240
- Voltage
- 220V / 50Hz
- Power Plug
- C, E
- Phone Jack
- RJ-11
- Currency
- CFA Franc
- Dial-up
- N/A
- WiFi
- N/A
About connectivity in Equatorial Guinea
Equatorial Guinea uses 220V/50Hz with Type C and Type E outlets. The phone jack is RJ-11. GETESA (Guinea Ecuatorial de Telecomunicaciones) and Muni operate the country's telecom infrastructure.
Equatoguinean commercial Internet emerged in the early 2000s. The country's authoritarian governance framework has shaped a substantially controlled Internet environment. Mobile data dominates current access.
The Equatoguinean prepaid international calling-card market through the 2000s served the modest diaspora — concentrated in Spain (the colonial-era and post-independence diaspora; Equatorial Guinea is the only Spanish-speaking country in Sub-Saharan Africa), Cameroon, Gabon, and the United States.
Tempest Telecom served Equatorial Guinea through dial-up POPs in Malabo. The very substantial offshore oil-and-gas sector (the country was one of the largest African petroleum producers in the 2000s-2010s before declines) sustained heavyweight Iridium customer demand.
Modern Equatorial Guinea has expanding mobile-data coverage with limited FTTH concentrated in Malabo and Bata.
Tempest's services across Equatorial Guinea, 1997–2012
Tempest Telecommunications operated international connectivity services in Equatorial Guinea between 1997 and 2012 under a unified prepaid account that absorbed multiple service types onto a single customer credential. Customers in Equatorial Guinea 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 Equatorial Guinea from approximately 2001, alongside global BGAN data from late 2005.
Nearby countries in Africa
Congo · Congo. Democratic Republic of the · Djibouti · Egypt · Eritrea · Ethiopia · Gabon · Gambia