# Internet in rural Mallorca



## ironbuns (Mar 16, 2012)

What's the best way to get broadband without a telephone line in the middle of Mallorca (San Joan)? Currently good cell-phone reception but technically ignorant so don't know if satellite necessary (diameter?), what capacity etc. is required for both work and play ie. BBC, ITV, NPR, Skype etc. Don't mind investing but prefer low monthly charge. Moving semi-permanently so any help/advice much appreciated


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## xicoalc (Apr 20, 2010)

ironbuns said:


> What's the best way to get broadband without a telephone line in the middle of Mallorca (San Joan)? Currently good cell-phone reception but technically ignorant so don't know if satellite necessary (diameter?), what capacity etc. is required for both work and play ie. BBC, ITV, NPR, Skype etc. Don't mind investing but prefer low monthly charge. Moving semi-permanently so any help/advice much appreciated


Take a look at this thread I wrote a few weeks ago

http://www.expatforum.com/expats/sp...iving-spain/102652-internet-phones-spain.html


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## ironbuns (Mar 16, 2012)

Dear Steve, Thanks for bringing my attention to this which I'm quite sure will be very useful. It will take a while to go through, mainly because of my technical limitations, but can I come back to you as it will for sure provoke a number of questions? Many thanks in anticipation, and regards, RB


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## xicoalc (Apr 20, 2010)

ironbuns said:


> Dear Steve, Thanks for bringing my attention to this which I'm quite sure will be very useful. It will take a while to go through, mainly because of my technical limitations, but can I come back to you as it will for sure provoke a number of questions? Many thanks in anticipation, and regards, RB


Of course!


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## xicoalc (Apr 20, 2010)

ironbuns said:


> Dear Steve, Thanks for bringing my attention to this which I'm quite sure will be very useful. It will take a while to go through, mainly because of my technical limitations, but can I come back to you as it will for sure provoke a number of questions? Many thanks in anticipation, and regards, RB


Worth adding that MOST sat systems are not fantastic for VoIP (Skype and suck like) due to the distance between you and the transmitter which causes "latency" (delays in the phone call or broken calls). I trialled one recently that was said to be "perfect" for phone calls but it was just as bad as the others.

As for BBC etc, these use a constant stream so Sat systems that come with limits may need a quite big package to suit them.

Have a read at the other stuff I wrote and if you have any queries I am happy to help!


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## tonyinspain (Jul 18, 2011)

Steve in spain ex ellent article 
I had iberbanda a d for a year everything was fine free instalation 39€ a month
Rang the uk e d of month bill 150€ fair one rang uk alot everyday expected the 150€ cost no probs internet fine like you said in your article some latency probs now and then but i was really happy with the service until i recieved a bill for 1500€ i nearly fell off my seat 
Queried this and they said that i hadnt paid over a year i said i had and have reciepts for this but they wouldnt have it turned me off i still have their equipment in my cupboard 
So beware 
Funny thing a few of my friends have had similar probs to mine pity really as i was happy with them
I now use vodafone data i tether my lapbook to my iphone and use this but no 3g here so very slow


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## ironbuns (Mar 16, 2012)

Dear Steve,

Hope this gets to you. In fact I'm going to Mallorca on Monday for 10 days to "set up" ie. comms, transport (another challenge bringing my car from the US), entertainment, and the house/finca itself. Will meet with local ESRA for input on internet/BBC as they should know from trial & error. Don't want to make mistakes so I'll be in touch on my return, if not before. Still haven't been able to focus on your treatise. Hasta pronto! Robert


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## ironbuns (Mar 16, 2012)

Dear Steve, Not yet very familiar with blogging so apologies in advance...

As background, we used to go to my small finca in San Joan for 3 or 4 weeks/year so a Blackberry and local TV was fine (the family is Argentine); the signal presumably comes from boosters as there is no land-line. I’m not sure what Telefonica’s obligation is now but when I asked 12 years ago they were going to charge quite a lot to extend the line to my house which is about 8 miles from the nearest supermarket. 

In future I will be spending at least 7 months/year and will be largely on my own so as an objective I want internet for e-mail plus BBC, ITV channels & radio. Next on the wish-list would be VOIP (cheap calls) and then streaming - quite soon I’m sure it will be possible to get everything through the internet - although my impression is that this requires a lot of capacity. I’m prepared to invest and did ask about a satellite dish 3 years ago but this was very expensive and my income will be limited so ongoing costs are very important.

After reading your account and doing some preliminary research I see we have WIMAX providers but 5mb download and 1.5mb upload is meaningless to me because I don’t know what is needed for the above! However I can live with “times when the internet is a little slow or the phone doesn't work properly”..... as long as the need for technical support is very limited.

Satellite sounds like it might be the best mid-term solution although I know this will cost ~1,000€ for the installation plus at least 50€/month for my needs, but this might just be acceptable if it was reliable and it was possible to watch BBC etc. on internet ie. free, and to feed this to a conventional flat-screen TV so there were no additional costs.

A tall order but what do you think? As I said, I hope to find out more next week.....

Many thanks for your inspiration, Robert


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## xicoalc (Apr 20, 2010)

> Dear Steve, Not yet very familiar with blogging so apologies in advance...


Hello! Don't worry, we all have to start somewhere 



> As background, we used to go to my small finca in San Joan for 3 or 4 weeks/year so a Blackberry and local TV was fine (the family is Argentine); the signal presumably comes from boosters as there is no land-line. I’m not sure what Telefonica’s obligation is now but when I asked 12 years ago they were going to charge quite a lot to extend the line to my house which is about 8 miles from the nearest supermarket.


I live in the country about 2 miles from the nearest area served by Telefonica and I got a blunt "NO". My last house was on an urbanisation where one side of the road had the cables but my side didnt. The urb. was not complete and the builder had gone bust so many of the houses with infrastructure for telefonica didn't have it and would never probably have it (they were unfinished houses),. There was even the underground trunking from the existing cables and box to my house and I offered to pay telefonica whatever they wanted to shove a cable down the trunking and connect me - but they wouldn't… so don't hold your breathe for traditional fixed line services!



> In future I will be spending at least 7 months/year and will be largely on my own so as an objective I want internet for e-mail plus BBC, ITV channels & radio. Next on the wish-list would be VOIP (cheap calls) and then streaming - quite soon I’m sure it will be possible to get everything through the internet - although my impression is that this requires a lot of capacity. I’m prepared to invest and did ask about a satellite dish 3 years ago but this was very expensive and my income will be limited so ongoing costs are very important.


For TV you can use the internet (although sattellite internet usually has strict download limits which may mean you cant watch as much TV as you want - WIMAX does;t usually have limits. An alternative for the TV would be just to pay someone to install a big sat tv dish and get you allt he channels directly, completely bypassing the internet. There is a guy on here called "Sat" who has written many interesting articles about this.

Be aware that if you want to get channels like BBC through internet you will not be able to with just a plain old internet connecttion. The websites will recognise you are outside of the UK and they are only permitted to broadcast within the UK - so you will geta message saying you cant do that in yoru area whenever you want to watch BBC, ITV or pretty much any TV station other than spanish.

You can get round this problem by using a proxy or VPN service - google British TV Proxy - there are many. Most charge you a few euros a month but allow you to connect to the internet through yoru connection BUT route your connection via their servers in the UK. This fools the websites like iPlayer into thinking you are in the UK and you can then watch them - not sure how legal this is but many companies offer it.



> After reading your account and doing some preliminary research I see we have WIMAX providers but 5mb download and 1.5mb upload is meaningless to me because I don’t know what is needed for the above! However I can live with “times when the internet is a little slow or the phone doesn't work properly”..... as long as the need for technical support is very limited.


5mb and 1.5mb is great! I get 6mb now but it usually works at about 5 and its perfect for everything. You will be able to watch videos, tv, music, phone, everything without problems - in spain 5mb is pretty fast - my mother in law has telefonica and only gets 4mb!



> Satellite sounds like it might be the best mid-term solution although I know this will cost ~1,000€ for the installation plus at least 50€/month for my needs, but this might just be acceptable if it was reliable and it was possible to watch BBC etc. on internet ie. free, and to feed this to a conventional flat-screen TV so there were no additional costs.
> 
> A tall order but what do you think? As I said, I hope to find out more next week.....
> 
> Many thanks for your inspiration, Robert


If you can get WIMAX i would go with that. Sat is expensive (although shouldnt cost 1000 for install - most are between 200 and 400 now. yes its faster sometimes BUT 5mb is very fast and suitable for almost evertything. Sat is subect to download limits usually and high latency which can cause problems with things like phone calls, and even TV.

For a phone call you only need about 0.1mb up and down - its the latency on the connection that determies whether the phone works or not!

I would look clsoely at the WEIMAX services - some offer their own telephone service and others dont, if they dont they contact soemone like voipfone.co.uk who offer great packages and UK and Spanish calls for about 1c a minute and they sell special phones to connect to yoru router so its just like having a landline.

Ask the internet provider how good their services is for Voip (many in Spain dont kwo what voip is so say Skype and they understand! - although personally i haet skype as the quality has always been bad for me).

As for TV, if your computer has the correct sockets then you can conect yoru TV, but if you go for WIMAX you will get install for either free or 100 euros (usually), so why not spend the rest of your money on a decent TV sattelite system.. then you get reliable TV, good internet, and a phone through internet!

Hope this helps!

AVOID SATTELLITE INTERNET unless you really really have to (my opinion) when you want to use phone services - in my experience it just isnt quite there yet on latency issues.


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## ironbuns (Mar 16, 2012)

Many thanks Steve. I'll read thoroughly and be back later.... this will certainly help narrow my search when I'm there next week. Un abrazo, Robert


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## ironbuns (Mar 16, 2012)

I’m a bit confused Steve because you start out recommending WIMAX and end up suggesting I spend “the rest” on a decent TV satellite system.. “then you get reliable TV, good internet, and a phone through internet!” Which sounds great, but this will mean paying the WIMAX provider eg. IB-Red for internet/phone (which costs about 50€/4mb/m + 139€ installation) and ALSO a satellite TV package for BBC/ITV etc. which will presumably cost another, say, 40€/m as well as installation? Well, I could live with both installation costs but 50€/m is already a stretch so if the choice is between good TV and good internet sadly it will have to be TV as I can always get to Manacor for internet which is 8 miles away. I’m not there yet, but you may have noticed that they’ve just reduced pensions in the UK!


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## tonyinspain (Jul 18, 2011)

Ironbuns if you go to bauhaus they have a sat package including 
Dish
Box
Lnb
For 79€
this will give you all the british tv channels that are free
Unless you want sky movies,sport etc then of course you would need a sky box and subscription but a any satbox will get you most of the english channels bbc 1,2,3,4 cbbc, itv,1,2,3,4, +1 e4,e4+1,more 4more4+1 channel 4,+1,channel5+1,five, fiver,five usa
Most film channels and music and some crap porno so thats the way to go just ask a friend what channels they recieve in your area and your away hope this helps
Tony


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## ironbuns (Mar 16, 2012)

*Internet/TV in rural Mallorca*

Dear Tony, I can't even master this blog, so what hope have I of setting up house?! Anyway, this certainly does help, at least give hope of sanity (as I'm sure you have found, Spanish TV is truly dire). Unfortunately there's no Bauhaus here yet; it looks like they're only in Catalunya so far, so I'll try Leroy Merlin in Palma next week. My mechnical skills are zero as well so it'll be a real challenge even if I can find the kit.... but we will prevail. Many thanks, Robert


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## xicoalc (Apr 20, 2010)

ironbuns said:


> I’m a bit confused Steve because you start out recommending WIMAX and end up suggesting I spend “the rest” on a decent TV satellite system.. “then you get reliable TV, good internet, and a phone through internet!” Which sounds great, but this will mean paying the WIMAX provider eg. IB-Red for internet/phone (which costs about 50€/4mb/m + 139€ installation) and ALSO a satellite TV package for BBC/ITV etc. which will presumably cost another, say, 40€/m as well as installation? Well, I could live with both installation costs but 50€/m is already a stretch so if the choice is between good TV and good internet sadly it will have to be TV as I can always get to Manacor for internet which is 8 miles away. I’m not there yet, but you may have noticed that they’ve just reduced pensions in the UK!


You can indeed get TV through the internet, but you would need a proxy service otherwise you wont get it because you are in Spain (assuming you want UK TV). This would be an additional 6-12 euros a month toa third party supplier. Some internet providers offer UKTV but on the high brit population areas, not always in rural areas.

You talked about spending thousands on a sat dish for internet and I was merely sayng that you could get your internet through WIMAX and if yo ufind any issues with your connection now being strong enoguht o spport TV then for about 1k you can get a TV sat dish in and freeview (no subscription) so you get yoru internet for the internet and phone and you get proper sattellite TV! Best of both worlds!


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## tonyinspain (Jul 18, 2011)

Hope this helps 19.2 east astra 2A
Point compass to 19.2 east
If you googlei install a satelite system there is plenty of easy how to install there
Main thing is direction and asimuth and make small adjustments only then wait its not like the old ariels it takea time to reach the satelite and then bounce back
And yes i live in catalunya i thought bauhous was all over sorry
Becareful as all seperate pieces can be expensive try carrefour they have a similar low cost system but all sat boxes are multi language and will get you english channels
All the best


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## ironbuns (Mar 16, 2012)

Thanks for this Tony. Both your and Steve's help has been essential, even in defining the priorities - great internet would be nice but I doubt it will be possible to stream TV, movies etc. whereas TV/entertainment/BBC will be essential to sanity and one hour/day internet in Manacor (8 miles away) will be enough - so thanks a million for that. However referring to Steve's comment that for 1k (presumably euros) I could get a TV sat dish in and freeview (which is enough), how much would the internet/phone cost/month? If no/low cost this indeed would be the best of both worlds.... almost! Anyway, I will meet with the local ESRA on Tuesday where somebody should know something about the possibilities in my area, and will check out Carrefour, etc. and will ask you for guidance before taking the plunge. All the best, Robert


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