Sierra Leone
Power & telecom standards in Sierra Leone
Connectivity Overview
Tempest Telecom offered dial-up internet access, WiFi hotspot access and broadband ethernet access in Sierra Leone. We also offered Iridium satellite Internet and Voice access in Sierra Leone for communications in rural areas without infrastructure.
Sierra Leone uses 230V at 50Hz. Power outlets are type D, G and telephone jacks are RJ-11.
Dial-up Internet Access
Tempest Telecom provided local dial-up access numbers in Sierra Leone 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 Sierra Leone 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.
Sierra Leone at a Glance
- Capital
- Freetown
- Phone Code
- +232
- Voltage
- 230V / 50Hz
- Power Plug
- D, G
- Phone Jack
- RJ-11
- Currency
- Leone
- Dial-up
- $0.255/min
- WiFi
- $19.95/day
About connectivity in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone uses 230V/50Hz with Type D and Type G outlets — British colonial-era wiring. The phone jack is RJ-11. Orange Sierra Leone and Africell compete in the country's telecom market.
Sierra Leonean commercial Internet was rebuilt almost from scratch following the 1991-2002 civil war. Mobile data dominates current access. The 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak shaped subsequent humanitarian-sector connectivity investment.
The Sierra Leonean prepaid international calling-card market through the 2000s served the substantial Sierra Leonean outbound diaspora — concentrated in the United Kingdom (one of the larger West African communities in Britain, particularly in London), the United States, and across the West African ECOWAS labor circuit.
Tempest Telecom served Sierra Leone through dial-up POPs in Freetown. The substantial humanitarian customer base across the civil war and Ebola response, the diamond-mining sector, the bauxite operations, and the Atlantic-coast fishing industry sustained Iridium demand.
Modern Sierra Leone has expanding mobile-data coverage in Freetown and the regional centers.
Tempest's services across Sierra Leone, 1997–2012
Tempest Telecommunications operated international connectivity services in Sierra Leone between 1997 and 2012 under a unified prepaid account that absorbed multiple service types onto a single customer credential. Customers in Sierra Leone 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 Sierra Leone from approximately 2001, alongside global BGAN data from late 2005.
Nearby countries in Africa
Reunion · Rwanda · Senegal · Seychelles · Somalia · South Africa · Sudan · Swaziland