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Relaxing with your laptop in
Andalucia |
If you are travelling to Spain in the near future
the chances are that you will want to keep in touch by making sure
you have access to the Internet.
Ease of communication is also part of the reason why so many British
and Northern Europeans are moving to Spain. There has been a huge
reduction in cost of international phone calls thanks to the liberalisation
of the European telecoms market, mobile phones are available to
everyone, innovative call redirection plans mean your friends wouldn't
know that you were on the beach if you didn't tell them. Not forgetting
free internet to boot.
Back in the mid nineties when commercial internet
was just taking hold, Telefonica the hated incumbent operator
did
something good. They set up Infovia, a local call internet access
network to connect you to your chosen Internet Service provider
(ISP). Suddenly Spain was a level playing field and big and small
ISP's were all able to compete for customers with local call
telephone
connections. There are plenty of ISP's to choose from at reasonable
monthly fees. Later the newer competing telephone companies (Retevision,
Uni2, JazzTell, BT) set up their own parallel internet access
networks
and gave them similar names such as Interpista.
When Freeserve broke the mould in the UK. The Spanish
telephone companies followed suit set up their own parallel networks
in order to prevent (commercially) other smaller companies from
doing so.
This means that if you want a free Internet Connection
(no monthly charge and calls at local rates) you should do it with
one of the portals owned by one of the telephone companies. If you
want a better level of customer service and a more personal help,
perhaps in English in setting up your connection contact a local
ISP.
ISP's in Spain don't tend to give out auto install
CD Roms. You either register on line or over the phone giving your
details including NIE or passport number and you will be given all
the data to set up a connection yourself This is User Name, Password,
Phone Number to Dial, and DNS settings.
For a free connection use Wanadoo connection by
Uni2 (see below), or Arrakis (www.arrakis.es or 902 020100) for
a economic paid connection or Metro Red Online (www.metrored-online.com
or 0034 952 880032) or Mercury (www.mercuryin.es or 0034 952 837575)
for their tremendous patience in English in helping you set up and
establish a connection.
For Wanadoo free connection, go to www.wanadoo.es
and click on the button 'Conecion Gratis' It is only in Spanish.
Those addicted to the net will be pleased to hear
that the telephone companies have special discount plans to save
your phone bill from heavy internet usage. These are called 'tarifa
plana' and in essence offer a flat cost irrespective of usage. The
best value ones apply naturally to evenings and weekends use and
cost typically 20 Euro a month, Twenty four hour ones cost 60 Euro
a month.
If you are travelling with a laptop don't forget
you will need a European/American telephone jack socket and a power
socket adaptor. The mains voltage is about 230 volts 50Hz in Spain,
same as UK. Universal Power Supply units are highly recommended
especially for use in the winter or in rural areas.
Assuming you are happily connected to the net you
will want to send and receive emails. This can be done from any
web browser to your yahoo or hotmail account. If you want to be
more in line try setting up a spain.com email at www.spain.com If
you need to check your emails waiting to be downloaded from your
UK service provider then www.mail2web.com is an excellent free browser
based facility that does not require any set up or fiddling with
someone else's outlook express. Take a note of your user name, password
and POP mail server name before you leave home.
Most of us use Outlook Express for sending and receiving
emails. Don't forget you can set up a second account and download
your emails from your English and Spanish ISP's POP account at the
same time regardless of which country you are in. Remember however
you must send all emails through the mail (SMTP) server of the ISP
with whom you actually connect to the net with. Having an ISP in
both countries avoids the need for making international calls in
this respect.
The much talked about ADSL Broadband is more popular
in Spain than in the UK as a result of a better pricing model. It
costs about 180 Euro to install including free modem and about 35
Euro a month line rental for the standard 256k bandwidth. Telefonica
offer the best coverage and the worst customer service. You may
need some form of technical assistance to get everything working
again (particularly email and networked computers) after the installation.
Contact a computer company in
Spain.
Fortec, an English speaking BT agent on +34 952
880056 can organise telephone line instalation for ADLS Internet
Connections. .
Perhaps all this is too technical for you and you
prefer just to use Internet Cafes to start with. Don't
forget to download a copy of their locations before you set
off, although there are plenty about you can never find one just
when you want one.
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