The Republic of Benin connected
itself to the Internet in November 1995 following the sixth summit of French-speaking
countries. The connection was made available to the general public in February 1996. The
international link initially had a capacity of 64 Kbps via France Radio et Cables, and it
was later upgraded to 128 Kbps through assistance from USAID's Leland Initiative.
The Benin telecommunications authority, Office des Postes et Télécommunications (OPT), is the
entity managing the national Internet Gateway. The service that hosts the node is "Centre
Beninpac" which was created to manage the X.25 network of the country. The OPT
is the top level domain administrator for .bj, and it also operates as an
Internet Service Provider. The following Internet connectivity charges apply for the OPT
(US$ 1.00 = F CFA 632.61 as of June 1999):
- Dial-up access without MailBox:
connection cost of 4950 F CFA (US$ 7.82), and the user has to pay for browsing 51 F CFA
(US$ 0.08) per minute by calling special number like green lines in France.
- Dial-up access with MailBox:
connection cost of 20064 F CFA (US$ 31.71), plus a monthly cost for the
MailBox of 10032 F CFA (US$ 15.85) and 51 FCFA (US$ 0.08) per minute while using the green
line.
- Leased line (below 28 Kbps):
connection cost of FCFA 150018 (US$ 237.09) and a monthly subscription cost of F CFA
400026 (US$ 632.21).
- Digital Leased line (Class C):
connection cost of F CFA 1000032 (US$ 1,580.48) and a monthly
subscription cost of F CFA 2800050 (US$ 4,425.28).
AUPELF-UREF, a Francophone educational entity within the framework of the REFER project has installed
a server hosted in a center called "Centre
Syfed-Refer". The Centre has more than 950 clients, 64 percent of which
are students, 33 percent researchers or lecturers, and 3 percent civil servant or
educational institutions. The center initially accessed the Internet through the X.25
network, but since November 1997 it has used a dedicated line at a contract price. The
cost is F CFA 4,500 (US$ 7.10) per three months for students, and F CFA 7,500 (US$
11.85) for researchers and lecturers.
Following the recent upgrading of
the national Internet gateway through assistance from USAID's Leland Initiative, the
national telecom OPT is now allowing new private sector Internet Service Providers
to be connected to the gateway. The following are some of the ISPs that are
currently in operation or are planning to provide services:
The Sustainable Development
Networking Programme (SDNP) of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the USAID
Leland Initiative are active in the development of Internet. The SDNP will establish a
national intranet (10 servers interconnected), which is expected to make the
information produced by each sector of the economy available to members of all sectors.
In February, 1999, USAID
Leland Initiative and four private sector ISPs sponsored an Internet training workshop
conducted by MTDS (Morocco Trade and Development Services
S.A). The Applications and Internet Training Strategy
Team trained 115 people in August, 1998, during their GLOBE, "train-the-trainer," and USAID
Mission partner training workshop.
Benin Internet Society
(BIS) was established following the
regional workshop on the development of Internet Services in Africa organised by UNDP in
Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, 11-13 November 1996. The Society aims to:
- create a favorable condition for the
efficient use of Internet as a development tool in Benin;
- promote Internet services in the
country; and
- play an advisory role to the
Government of Benin and to any other groups interested in the area of information and
communication technologies.
Internet host sites: 27
(2000)
Internet subscribers (1999):
- Total: 2,000
- Subscribers per 10,000
inhabitants: 3.40
Internet Users (2000):
- Total: 15,000
- Users per 10,000 inhabitants: 24.60
Internet use by categories:
- Commercial:
- Academic:
- Research:
- NGO/UN/International:
- Government:
- Others:
Internet bandwidth (Kbps):
256
