Mauritania
Power & telecom standards in Mauritania
Connectivity Overview
Tempest Telecom offered dial-up internet access, WiFi hotspot access and broadband ethernet access in Mauritania. We also offered Iridium satellite Internet and Voice access in Mauritania for communications in rural areas without infrastructure.
Mauritania uses 220V at 50Hz. Power outlets are type C and telephone jacks are RJ-11.
Dial-up Internet Access
Tempest Telecom provided local dial-up access numbers in Mauritania 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 Mauritania 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.
Mauritania at a Glance
- Capital
- Nouakchott
- Phone Code
- +222
- Voltage
- 220V / 50Hz
- Power Plug
- C
- Phone Jack
- RJ-11
- Currency
- Ouguiya
- Dial-up
- $0.255/min
- WiFi
- $19.95/day
About connectivity in Mauritania
Mauritania uses 220V/50Hz with Type C outlets — French colonial-era wiring. The phone jack is RJ-11. Mauritel (state, partially privatized to Maroc Telecom), Mattel, and Chinguitel compete in the country's telecom market.
Mauritanian commercial Internet emerged in the late 1990s. Mobile data dominates current Internet access.
The Mauritanian prepaid international calling-card market through the 2000s served the modest Mauritanian diaspora — concentrated in France, Senegal, Mali, and Saudi Arabia.
Tempest Telecom served Mauritania through dial-up POPs in Nouakchott. The substantial iron-ore mining sector (Zouérate), the fishing industry (Mauritania's Atlantic waters are among the most productive globally), and humanitarian operators across the Sahara-Sahel customer base sustained Iridium demand.
Modern Mauritania has expanding mobile-data coverage in Nouakchott and the regional centers.
Tempest's services across Mauritania, 1997–2012
Tempest Telecommunications operated international connectivity services in Mauritania between 1997 and 2012 under a unified prepaid account that absorbed multiple service types onto a single customer credential. Customers in Mauritania 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 Mauritania from approximately 2001, alongside global BGAN data from late 2005.
Nearby countries in Africa
Libya · Madagascar · Malawi · Mali · Mauritius · Morocco · Mozambique · Namibia