Paraguay
Power & telecom standards in Paraguay
Connectivity Overview
Tempest Telecom offered dial-up internet access, WiFi hotspot access and broadband ethernet access in Paraguay. We also offered Iridium satellite Internet and Voice access in Paraguay for communications in rural areas without infrastructure.
Paraguay 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 Paraguay at $0.155/minute. Travelers could connect using any standard modem with an RJ-11 telephone adapter.
WiFi Hotspot Access
Tempest Telecom provided WiFi hotspot access in Paraguay 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.
Paraguay at a Glance
- Capital
- Asuncion
- Phone Code
- +595
- Voltage
- 220V / 50Hz
- Power Plug
- C
- Phone Jack
- RJ-11
- Currency
- Guarani
- Dial-up
- $0.155/min
- WiFi
- $19.95/day
About connectivity in Paraguay
Paraguay uses 220V/50Hz with Type C outlets — the simplest single-type European-standard installation in South America. The phone jack is RJ-11. COPACO (Compañía Paraguaya de Comunicaciones), the state-owned fixed-line operator, holds historical market position. Tigo Paraguay (Millicom, the country's largest mobile operator), Personal Paraguay (Telecom Argentina), Claro Paraguay (América Móvil), and Vox compete in mobile and broadband.
Paraguayan commercial Internet emerged in the late 1990s through COPACO and a small number of regional ISPs. Per-minute metered dial-up through COPACO PSTN dominated the late 1990s and early 2000s. Mobile data has driven essentially all of Paraguay's recent Internet-access growth; the country's relatively low population density (~7 million across a large territory) and modest economic resources have constrained fixed-line broadband development outside Asunción.
COPACO cardphone deployment was modest. The Paraguayan prepaid international calling-card market through the 2000s and 2010s served the substantial Paraguayan outbound diaspora — concentrated in Argentina (the largest single destination, with hundreds of thousands of Paraguayan workers in the Buenos Aires region), Brazil, Spain, and the United States. The country's Guaraní-language population sustained per-destination card volume targeting specific community-of-origin areas.
Tempest Telecom served Paraguay through dial-up POPs in Asunción and Ciudad del Este. Iridium satphones served the Gran Chaco wilderness operations across the western departments, the agricultural sector (Paraguay is a major soy and beef producer), and the Triple Frontier border-trade customer base around Ciudad del Este (the Argentina-Brazil-Paraguay tri-border zone).
Modern Paraguay has expanding 4G LTE coverage with FTTH concentrated in Asunción. The country's population dispersion and Guaraní-bilingual culture continue to shape infrastructure deployment patterns.
Tempest's services across Paraguay, 1997–2012
Tempest Telecommunications operated international connectivity services in Paraguay between 1997 and 2012 under a unified prepaid account that absorbed multiple service types onto a single customer credential. Customers in Paraguay drew from the same balance for pre-paid international voice calling, RADIUS-authenticated dial-up Internet roaming, metered Wi-Fi hotspot access, Iridium satellite voice, and Inmarsat BGAN data terminals. An attempted kiosk-payment federation (PATN, 1998) extended the same architecture to public Internet terminals but failed to reach scale.
Iridium satellite voice was available in Paraguay from approximately 2001 (post-bankruptcy relaunch). Thuraya coverage did not extend to Paraguay; Inmarsat BGAN data terminals filled the broadband gap from late 2005.
Nearby countries in Americas
Mexico · Netherlands Antilles · Nicaragua · Panama · Peru · Puerto Rico · Suriname · Trinidad and Tobago