Taiwan
Power & telecom standards in Taiwan
Connectivity Overview
Tempest Telecom offered dial-up internet access, WiFi hotspot access and broadband ethernet access in Taiwan. We also offered Iridium satellite Internet and Voice access in Taiwan for communications in rural areas without infrastructure.
Taiwan uses 110V at 60Hz. Power outlets are type A, B and telephone jacks are RJ-11.
Dial-up Internet Access
Tempest Telecom provided local dial-up access numbers in Taiwan 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 Taiwan at $19.95/day for unlimited browsing.
Adapters & Power
North American (Type A/B) plugs are compatible. An adapter may not be needed for US travelers.
Standard RJ-11 jacks are used. Most international modems will connect without an adapter.
Taiwan at a Glance
- Capital
- Taipei
- Phone Code
- +886
- Voltage
- 110V / 60Hz
- Power Plug
- A, B
- Phone Jack
- RJ-11
- Currency
- NTD
- Dial-up
- $0.155/min
- WiFi
- $19.95/day
About connectivity in Taiwan
Taiwan uses 110V/60Hz with Type A and Type B outlets, the North American flat-pin standard (matching the historical Japanese and US influence on Taiwanese electrical infrastructure). The phone jack is RJ-11. Chunghwa Telecom, descended from the Directorate General of Telecommunications under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, was corporatized in 1996 and partially privatized in 2000. Taiwan Mobile, Far EasTone, and Asia Pacific Telecom (the post-2023 GT&T-Asia Pacific Telecom merger absorbed Asia Pacific into Far EasTone) compete in mobile and broadband.
Taiwan's academic TANet opened the country's first international Internet connection in 1991. Commercial dial-up emerged through 1994-1995 with Chunghwa Telecom's HiNet, SeedNet (Digital United, originally an IBM-Taiwan joint venture), Yam.com, and Acer Connect. Per-minute metered dial-up through Chunghwa Telecom PSTN dominated the late 1990s. ADSL service from HiNet launched in the early 2000s and rapidly displaced consumer dial-up across the urban areas. Taiwan's broadband market matured early as the country's semiconductor and electronics-manufacturing industrial base drove sophisticated network-infrastructure investment.
The Directorate General of Telecommunications (later Chunghwa Telecom) introduced cardphone units in Taiwan from the mid-1990s, with chip-card technology becoming standard. The Taiwanese commemorative phonecard collector market developed substantially over two decades of cardphone issues. The prepaid international calling-card market through the 2000s served the substantial Taiwanese outbound diaspora to the US (particularly Southern California), Canada, Australia, and Japan, alongside the inbound Filipino, Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Thai migrant-worker communities calling home. Chunghwa Telecom payphone units across MRT stations, train stations, and public buildings were progressively decommissioned through the 2010s as mobile saturation completed.
Tempest Telecom served Taiwan through dial-up POPs in Taipei and Kaohsiung, with WiFi at $19.95/day at Taoyuan Airport and major hotel chains as wireless rolled out through the mid-2000s. Iridium satphones served the Taiwan Strait maritime industry and the outlying-island markets (Kinmen, Matsu, Penghu).
Modern Taiwan has aggressive FTTH deployment, mature 5G from Chunghwa, Taiwan Mobile, and Far EasTone, and consistently ranks in the global top tier for broadband speed.
Tempest's services across Taiwan, 1997–2012
Tempest Telecommunications operated international connectivity services in Taiwan between 1997 and 2012 under a unified prepaid account that absorbed multiple service types onto a single customer credential. Customers in Taiwan 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 Taiwan from approximately 2001 (post-bankruptcy relaunch). Thuraya coverage did not extend to Taiwan; Inmarsat BGAN data terminals filled the broadband gap from late 2005.
Nearby countries in Asia
Pakistan · Philippines · Singapore · Sri Lanka · Tajikistan · Thailand · Turkmenistan · Uzbekistan