It occurred to me after reading an article about the quality and speed of internet in the UK that, from personal experience here in Spain, we don't actually do so bad - perhaps with the exception to pricing.
The article related that UK broadband subscribers at best have a 27% shortfall in the internet speed they're paying for and 60% at worst! That is appalling. The worst offenders in this scenario are Sky and TalkTalk (Tiscali) and the best is PlusNet.
Whilst I was with Telefonica on 3M, it rarely, if ever, went below 2M so it was on a par with the best in the UK (30%) and that was on ancient copper cable that doesn't like ADSL compared to the fibre-optic systems of the UK. My time with Europa 6M internet was even better with speeds rarely dipping to 5M which is better than the UK best at 15% shortfall.
My current provider, Telecable (Santa Pola Cable), provides me with 4M internet for a monthly fee of €21. Telecable seem to be one of the providers here that are bucking the trend. Why? Well, my 4M internet is actually running closer to 7M because they are trialing an upgrade without increasing the cost to the subscriber!!
I wouldn't normally recommend a wireless service provider above a landline one because most of them try to make it do things it's not supposed to do but these guys just seem to want to make it work.
No, this isn't meant to be an advert for Telecable but more about my experience with internet providers but, they do seem to be one the big players need to look out for. I have previously used Telefonica and Europa and found them to be very reliable, it''s the price point and the fact you can tailor the services to what you want. I operate my own VoIP service so the only thing I really need is internet. I don't need the phone line that comes with traditional ADSL which incurs an unnecessary financial penalty as nobody offers 'blind' ADSL apart from Vodafone but that prospect can be painful and quite unreliable.
Blind ADSL is simply having internet sent down a phone line without having a telephone connection.
In conclusion following my experiences of broadband/ADSL here in Spain is that the quality is far better than that reported in the UK so in that respect you can expect to pay more. OK, it's not a very scientific experiment but it is my personal experience.
The article related that UK broadband subscribers at best have a 27% shortfall in the internet speed they're paying for and 60% at worst! That is appalling. The worst offenders in this scenario are Sky and TalkTalk (Tiscali) and the best is PlusNet.
Whilst I was with Telefonica on 3M, it rarely, if ever, went below 2M so it was on a par with the best in the UK (30%) and that was on ancient copper cable that doesn't like ADSL compared to the fibre-optic systems of the UK. My time with Europa 6M internet was even better with speeds rarely dipping to 5M which is better than the UK best at 15% shortfall.
My current provider, Telecable (Santa Pola Cable), provides me with 4M internet for a monthly fee of €21. Telecable seem to be one of the providers here that are bucking the trend. Why? Well, my 4M internet is actually running closer to 7M because they are trialing an upgrade without increasing the cost to the subscriber!!
I wouldn't normally recommend a wireless service provider above a landline one because most of them try to make it do things it's not supposed to do but these guys just seem to want to make it work.
No, this isn't meant to be an advert for Telecable but more about my experience with internet providers but, they do seem to be one the big players need to look out for. I have previously used Telefonica and Europa and found them to be very reliable, it''s the price point and the fact you can tailor the services to what you want. I operate my own VoIP service so the only thing I really need is internet. I don't need the phone line that comes with traditional ADSL which incurs an unnecessary financial penalty as nobody offers 'blind' ADSL apart from Vodafone but that prospect can be painful and quite unreliable.
Blind ADSL is simply having internet sent down a phone line without having a telephone connection.
In conclusion following my experiences of broadband/ADSL here in Spain is that the quality is far better than that reported in the UK so in that respect you can expect to pay more. OK, it's not a very scientific experiment but it is my personal experience.
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