Benin is an African state Internet and e-commerce industry of which we are to study today. Benin is a country in West Africa, bordering Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Benin, that has its capital in Porto-Novo, is a tropical, sub-Saharan nation with substantial employment and income arising from subsistence farming. Country’s economy remains underdeveloped and mostly dependent on subsistence agriculture, cotton production, and regional trade.

The global economic crisis didn’t come by Benin. Thus, Benin’s economy has faced the recession in 2009 and in 2010 GDP growth has remained weak at around 3%. The country is expected to exceed pre-crisis levels continuously from 2012 onwards at 5%-6% per annum.

As for the Benin’s telecom infrastructure, it was naturally affected to the downturn, that was reflected by drop in prices for telecommunication services and the introduction of innovative new services. That’s how country’s telecom service providers in the country have reacted the economic recession.

Internet has been available in Benin since 1995, however, it is still used by only a small percentage of the population. Thus at present only 2.2% of the Beninese has Internet access, with just 200,000 people connected. However, Internet penetration growth, that has made up over 1230% for the decade, is impressive.

Development of the ICT sector has been hampered by the poor fixed-line network and the high cost of international connectivity.

Mobile data services are also available, but 3G mobile broadband services have not yet been introduced. The arrival of a second international submarine fibre optic cable to compete with the SAT-3/WASC cable from 2011 is anticipated to lead to drastic reductions in the cost of international bandwidth.

 Benin Telecoms is the national fixed-line monopolist. The company’s privatization has been discussed since 2006 but has so far not sprung to life.

The company is currently developing and expanding its CDMA2000 fixed-wireless and its ADSL broadband service and has launched the country’s first WiMAX wireless broadband network.

Besides, the incumbent has been extending its national fibre backbone and international fibre connections, enabling it to act as a national and regional bandwidth hub.

  Importantly, Benin Telecoms is to depend on capital and management from a strategic international investor in order to develop successfully its services.

BorgouNET is the other Benin’s Internet Service Provider that appeared to be the first in the north of Benin. Initially, in 2000, the ISP was set up as an email gateway for development agencies. BorgouNET is currently the main internet service provider in North Benin offering RTC connections and wireless connections.

One more Internet services provider available in Benin is GS Telecom, operating primarily in Africa. The company is located in the Channel Islands of the United Kingdom. GS Telecom is operating in over 37 countries on the continent. GS Telecom has maintenance bases in Ghana, Benin, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, Angola and Nigeria.

Country’s Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is .bj, administered by the Office of Stations and Telecommunications of Benin.

The zone “.bj” is broken up into two separate categories: public domains, like .bj, .gouv.bj, .mil.bj, .edu.bj, .gov.bj, .asso.bj, etc.; and sectoral fields, such as .barreau.bj, .com.bj etc.

Registrations under .bj domain are available directly at the second level, or at third level beneath some second-level labels.

However some limitations exist. As domain names, alphanumeric terms made up of letters of the French alphabet from A to Z, figures from 0 to 9, and indents “-” are allowed. Besides, the domain names should:

• be composed of a single nature;
• be composed of two letters only;
• begin or finishing with an indent “-”;
• be of a length greater than 255 characters (or 63 by under field);
• not be recorded.

As for e-commerce sector, Benin cannot boast about high development of this sector in the country. Like in many African country e-commerce business of Benin is very immature being on the lowest stage of its development.

Despite, country’s ICT infrastructure has a lot to be improved and developed, the signs of progress are obvious, with the appearance of new Internet and related services.