Tunisia
Power & telecom standards in Tunisia
Connectivity Overview
Tempest Telecom offered dial-up internet access, WiFi hotspot access and broadband ethernet access in Tunisia. We also offered Iridium satellite Internet and Voice access in Tunisia for communications in rural areas without infrastructure.
Tunisia uses 230V at 50Hz. Power outlets are type C, E and telephone jacks are RJ-11.
Dial-up Internet Access
Tempest Telecom provided local dial-up access numbers in Tunisia 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 Tunisia 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.
Tunisia at a Glance
- Capital
- Tunis
- Phone Code
- +216
- Voltage
- 230V / 50Hz
- Power Plug
- C, E
- Phone Jack
- RJ-11
- Currency
- Dinar
- Dial-up
- $0.155/min
- WiFi
- $19.95/day
About connectivity in Tunisia
Tunisia uses 230V/50Hz with Type C and Type E outlets — the French-standard wiring reflecting the colonial Protectorate-era infrastructure heritage. The phone jack is RJ-11. Tunisie Telecom, the post-1995 corporatized successor to the Office National des Postes et Télécommunications, was partially privatized in 2006 with a consortium led by Dubai Holding taking a stake. Ooredoo Tunisia (formerly Tunisiana, the Qatari Ooredoo-owned brand) and Orange Tunisie compete in mobile and broadband. The 2011 Tunisian Revolution and subsequent democratic transition shaped telecom-policy reforms through the 2010s.
Tunisia's academic ATI (Agence Tunisienne d'Internet) provided early Internet connectivity from 1996, with Tunisie Telecom's commercial dial-up rollout following the same year. Per-minute metered access through Tunisie Telecom PSTN dominated the late 1990s. ADSL rollout from Tunisie Telecom began in 2003 and broadband adoption accelerated through the late 2000s. Through the pre-2011 Ben Ali era, Tunisian Internet was substantially filtered and surveilled; the post-2011 democratic transition substantially loosened content controls.
Tunisie Telecom introduced cardphone units in the 1990s with chip-card cardphones becoming standard. The Tunisian prepaid international calling-card market through the 2000s and 2010s served the substantial Tunisian outbound diaspora — concentrated in France (an estimated 700,000+ people, one of the largest North African communities in France after the Algerian and Moroccan populations), Italy, Germany, Belgium, and the Gulf states. Card brands targeting Tunisian destinations sold through North African-grocery and convenience-store networks in the receiving countries. Tunisie Telecom payphone fleets have been progressively decommissioned through the 2010s.
Tempest Telecom served Tunisia through dial-up POPs in Tunis. The Sahara expedition customer base (the Grand Erg Oriental and Grand Erg Occidental dune regions), the Mediterranean maritime industry, and archaeological-research operators across Carthage and the Roman/Phoenician sites were a meaningful Iridium satphone market.
Modern Tunisia has expanding FTTH in Tunis and the major coastal cities with 4G LTE essentially universal in populated areas. 5G rollout began in 2024.
Tempest's services across Tunisia, 1997–2012
Tempest Telecommunications operated international connectivity services in Tunisia between 1997 and 2012 under a unified prepaid account that absorbed multiple service types onto a single customer credential. Customers in Tunisia 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 Tunisia from approximately 2001, alongside global BGAN data from late 2005.
Nearby countries in Africa
South Africa · Sudan · Swaziland · Tanzania · Togo · Uganda · Zambia · Zimbabwe