Don't forget Yoigo prepaid mobile SIM cards (€10 apiece in The Phone House)

• €1.2/day (different schools of thought about if with/without VAT)
• no cost the days you don't connect
• minimum charge €6./month

Most convenient if:

• You own a laptop and want to be connected when on the move
• You don't connect everyday
• You just want emails and plain web browsing (i.e. no P2P, no video downloading...)

The caveats:

• You need to use it through a non-SIM-locked UMTS mobile phone (or data card), connected to your PC through Bluetooth, USB cable or else
• You need Yoigo||Vodafone UMTS/3G coverage (GSM won't do)
• Bitrate varies btw 64kbps -- 384kbps. Enough for web browsing but that's it

Shergar was not looking! Thanks for asking, the plaster will come off on April 17th. He wants to ask the hospital if they can keep the plaster in for another 4 weeks as he likes being served hand foot and finger.

Ex-pat

Thanks, Tarn, you sound like you`ve been down my road. I was on the point of booking in with Telefonica, but just getting hold of people is nearly as difficult as it is with Orange, so I decided to cool it until next month, by which time there may be a nice cheap promotion going.
But this Internet via a prepaid card sounds just the ticket, as I`ll be out of Spain for long periods. I have an Orange mobile, which works well, can I do it with them, or do I need to change to Vodafone? Thanks a million, Tarn.

Hi parispete

Neither an Orange- nor a Vodafone-subsidised mobile phone will do, unless you jailbreak it:

• If your phone (and maybe your SIM card) is more than 1yr-old, you are on your right to receive an unlocking code (el código para liberar el móvil) from customer care.
• OR You go to some tienda en la que liberan móviles. Any tienda with Yoigo SIM cards (or a Todo a 100) might advise you about the nearest places.
• OR You deal with the stuff yourself

Unlocking phones is legal, but don't expect much compensation if the guy bricks your phone in the process.

In any case for any decent web browsing the mobile phone (or data card or dongle) has to be 3G (=UMTS), and have the right connectivity (USB cable, Bluetooth...) with your PC.

Most UMTS phones have a front camera for video calls.

Yoigo sells some phones through its page (www.yoigo.es). The least expensive UMTS phone seems to be the Nokia 6120 Classic (€139, incl. an €10 SIM card).

You might find second hand Libre UMTS phones at pawn shops like Cash Converters or Second Market, but:

• They usually come without connectivity cables
• You never know if the battery is on its death throes
• Pawn shops in Spain are adept at pricing like new--or beyond. Always second check

Connecting through a Nokia phone was a breeze for me, just installing Nokia PC Suite and following the programme instructions.

Gee, what a mine of information. Thanks a million to everyone who spilled their hearts. I have left a message with Europa to see what they can do and for how much, but I am going down the route suggested by Tarn, because it sounds fascinating.
If there`s one thing I have in abundance, it`s virtually unused mobile phones, as I get them free from my Australian contract dealers. I have two Motorolas in really great shape, one a quadband Razr, plus my Spanish Sharp, and a fairly recent Nokia. All are untied, except maybe the Sharp with Spanish Orange.
I`m due back on the Costa in a month, Tarn, and would very much like to touch base with you then. I`ll be bringing all my phones from Oz to see which one fits the deal best.
Meanwhile, a thought.
I have a satellite television with a working parabolica. Can this be somehow rigged to a new internet ADSL service?? I also have a desktop and a laptop with a wireless card. Can anything be done with any of this?
Thanks again, everyone. Pete

Indeed a parabólica brings you a step closer to satellite internet. But a dish is worth a few €10s and the bulk of the price goes perhaps elsewhere. Also, least expensive providers might require larger dishes--market forces at work.

For a permanent connection in Spain I think the choice goes:

• 1) Plain copper ADSL. You pay some €13/mo for the line then from €20 to anything for the ADSL service. You usually get domestic calls bundled in
• 2) LMDS/Wimax www.iberbanda.es if you happen to be out of reach of ADSL
• 3) full-fledged HSDPA UMTS (starting some €30/month, 1 Mbps with some 4GB/month limit) with Movistar or Vodafone

Of course telcos will be most helpful for you signing in, but signing out is quite another matter. When that day arrives write down: Send this to them by a registered letter or fax (carta certificada or burofax) from a Correos post office.

Don't know the satellite prices --but if they had a better deal I suppose it wouldn't last long, because new customers would just crowd in.

parispete have a nice time. If you need help with Yoigo and you notice I had been offline for long, just wake me up to this forum by dropping me a personal message

Message understood,　Tarn, but I got the television and the parabolica with the flat. So, should I be paying some bureau for the use of it?
This is no problem as I have a great time in Spain and find the people just the best, so I`m not out to sidestep any standard obligations.
But shifting to Europe has opened my eyes to the hungry masses who feast off old dodderers like me. Like the lawyer who took my deposit on a flat, sold the flat to another buyer, then had to be sued by another lawyer to give the money back. Or the phone company that advertises 4 euros a month if you are out of town and not using - then somehow routes calls through your number so you`re always IN town - and using.
Having worked as a freelance journalist, my next plan is a website and blog dedicated to the protection of all expats who have wandered off the native language path in search of stranger but sunnier climes. I was the victim of a major ripoff in Spain thirty years ago and the memory still hurts, since a Spanish procurador played a major role in the con, but was never indicted.
So if you could steer me towards a web page designer, Tarn, or if this is your thing, I hope we can talk more.
Meanwhile, does my existing (and working) television parabolica make my internet access any easier to contemplate???

Try looking at Iberbanda; and get a WiMax connection (microwave connection from small antenna on your roof to nearest fixed mast). Works over 15 kilometers (at least).

No more b--- telefonica and silly phone lines ! I have had WiMax for nearly a year and it's superb. 500kp up and downlink - consistantly - for €45 a month.

R

Do they cover the Cadiz region??

I suggest you google "Iberbanda S.A." Their website includes a facility where you type your address in and it tells you whether you have coverage in your area.

Installation of the equipment is carried out (at least here in Catalania) by a seperate company, Banda Ampla S.A.

Equipment and installation is free (that's the microwave flat plate antenna on the roof and a four pair cable thru a power supply to your firewire/ethernet connection). Once the firewire plug is in, your pc recognises in, you have a 2 or 3 second wait for allocation of a number, and you are on.

Iberbanda also offers a telephone connection over the link for €6 a month extra, all international calls up to (I think) 300 minutes a month free. But of course we all by-passing Telefonica by using Contacta (dial 700 500 700) for our cheap calls to the outside world, aren't we ?

Robin

Here is the Iberbanda url

http://www.iberbanda.es/esp/index.php

Only time WiMax goes down is in conditions of heavy rain or extremely high humidity, but obviously the nearer you live to their transmitter/receiver the better your performance will be. Oh and we also have extremely high winds in this district of Catalunia which rarely disrupt the signal (and satellite TV as well, come to that).

Robin

parispete,

You may enjoy the parabólica for free for any Free-to-air TV, radio or internet service you could skim out of it. No TV licence. In particular if...

• the dish was declared as an asset by your landlord, or
• if it was conspicuous when you inspected the property

...I suppose it has to be in working condition at your landlord's expense.

Most parabólicas in Spain are either oriented Southwest to Hispasat (Some Free-to-air regional Spanish channels, BBC World, France 24 in English and some others) or Southeast to Astra at 19ºE (Same as Hispasat plus Sky News and German TV galore)

SES Astra has a broadband internet service, [google for] Astra2connect. For the dish to be useful it should be oriented to the right satellite (maybe Astra 19ºE) and have a direct coaxial cable connection from the "LNB" at the tip of your dish to the room where you intend to have your PC. Too much hassle if you had another option, I guess.

I do know some IT people who deal with web programming, but not directly with web designers for final customers. It would be a matter of asking around once we'd have clear the requirements.

Anyway, webmongering goes a long span from maintaining a blog or a personal page, all the way up to a full-fledged commercial site. I guess you might be more or less close to square one (99.9% of us are), and things get free, powerful and reasonably easy in this realm.

Might I suggest you play around with blogger.com and wordpress.com? -Most bloggers (even many of the really successful ones) feel these services are more than enough. And were you compelled to hire somebody in the future, you'd already know how things go, what you might expect for your money, and what housekeeping is best left for you to do.

We've been with Telephonica for 5 months and are looking for an alternative. The service works just fine but its expensive and they keep sending our bills to the wrong address. The first time this happened they cut off out going calls but as we don't make that many and still got incoming calls and internet access we didn't realise what had happened for about 2 weeks. We didn't know that they bill you monthly not quarterly like in the UK. They charged 20 euros to reinstate the service once we had paid the bill then we didn't get the next 2 bills either. So now we have to phone 1004 every month to ask for the bill to be sent to the right address as they seem incapable of correcting it. We're also pretty sore as we paid over 100 euros to Telephonica in English to get the service which was supposed to result in free installation. Telephonica charged another 117 euros when they finally turned up on for the 6th arranged appointment. We think we're tied in for a 12 month contract but would like to change at the end of that. SO if anyone can recommend an alternative in Catalonia (Girona area), I'll be opening a bottle of cava!!

Robin whats the story on Contacta, how does it work & what do they charge?
Thanks

If you set up a direct debit then you will have no problems. You can also sign up for online bills - much easier than relying on the postal system.

Telefonica bill every 2 months unless you are on ADSL then it's monthly.

Telefonica in English is a con - they are just agents pretending to be something special. Many people have been charged twice this way.

There are cheaper alternatives to Telefonica but they nearly all lie about the expected connection speeds and if anything goes wrong they blame Telefonica who then blame them.

Telefonica usually deliver the contracted speeds and are more likely to sort out any line problems as they own the line.