# Broadband in Alicante Province



## casvid (May 6, 2009)

Does anyone have any advice on obtaining a broadband connection for someone who is only resident in Spain for 4 months a year in total? Is a dongle the answer? if so what do you have to do to use this system?


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## SteveHall (Oct 17, 2008)

A dongle is NOT the answer if you do not have good 3G coverage. Just been through this re friend near Algorfa, Alicante. Depends where in Alicante they are as to who can cover them. PM me if you want some names for the specific area.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

SteveHall said:


> A dongle is NOT the answer if you do not have good 3G coverage. Just been through this re friend near Algorfa, Alicante. Depends where in Alicante they are as to who can cover them. PM me if you want some names for the specific area.


Steve, newbies cant PM, so you should find another way of sharing your info, like perhaps putting the names for specific areas on the forum

Jo xx


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## SteveHall (Oct 17, 2008)

Ok, where are we talking about, OP ?


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

SteveHall said:


> Ok, where are we talking about, OP ?


 hahahaha Thats better :clap2:

Jo xxx


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## casvid (May 6, 2009)

*Reply*



SteveHall said:


> A dongle is NOT the answer if you do not have good 3G coverage. Just been through this re friend near Algorfa, Alicante. Depends where in Alicante they are as to who can cover them. PM me if you want some names for the specific area.


Thanks Steve, I would be interested in some names and the area is between Denis and Calpe.


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## SteveHall (Oct 17, 2008)

Try Telitec in Moraira Telitec - Spains No 1 Communications Company


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## Seb* (Mar 22, 2009)

SteveHall said:


> Try Telitec in Moraira Telitec - Spains No 1 Communications Company


Some words to Telitec:

- It's a wireless Wimax connection, which is a good and proven technology and by far better than those crappy wifi-homerouter solutions you find from time to time

- When you order and install it the staff is really nice and quick, we had just the best experience with that part! depending on their schedule they set you up within days!


now to the not so good points:

Their backbone to the internet is absolutely underperforming. Since we're with them we experience massive high latency from early afternoon until around 11 at night. Skype (VoIP), other voicecom software, online games are impossible during those times, latency goes up to 6000ms and is very spikey. It got worse over the last 4 months (they expanded their reach up to Torrevieja etc. so loads of new customers). During the early morning hours it's absolutely perfect!

I was argueing for the past 3-4 months with them about the performance. They just told me that everything would be fine and it would be my equipment. I'm working with network and server technologie since i was 15 I know what I am doing. But the only thing they did was threatening me if they would come out and it is not them they would charge me blabla. Even after I supplied them with pathping and traceroute screenshots and logs.
Since they do their "performance tests" with one of those public java based speed test (speedtest.net etc.) they could easily "proove" a good connection to the internet, cause of the way those tests work - they dont take packetloss and spikes into account. Ah well long story short:

Finally this week they admitted to me that they "experience high useage" and that they are planning to improve their connection to the internet. How much this actually improves performance and if they really do it or how long it will take remains to be seen.


To sum it up at this moment in time: normal browsing and email is soso, it works but can get sluggish and slow (with some timeouts) from afternoon onwards. If you use VoIP you will experience connection loss and very bad sound quality (to the evening it's not usable tbh). Online gaming and applications that rely on low latency are more than painfull. To make it clear: in the off-peak hours it's absolutely fine, top quality - if it would be like that 24 hours Telitec would be one of the best internet service providers I used so far. But from 13.00-23.00 you will notice a massive drop in performance.

I have seen this before in "relatively young" and fast growing internet companies. Some of them cant fix it and just disappear from the market - others react and become big players. And I think Telitec has potential. The people are really nice and try to help within their capabilities - I just hope they fix the performance issues.

One plus point with Telitec especially if you are only down here for 4 months is, that you can "freeze" the internet access with them for several months, where they just switch it off and you don't have to pay during this time (for full calendar months) - our sales adviser told me about it back in april when we got the installation. So it's probably a better solution than a fixed ADSL contract.

Telitec offers mobile contracts and pre-paid cards as well. Just the best experience here really. They are very flexible and quick - so no open wishes there.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

There are loads of really cheap wifi/voip companies out there, Mercury, acox, bamboo, conecta4... to name but a few, they're all really cheap and really good, altho it depends on your area and whether you're near an aerial. I've just got a wifi thingy and for under 150€ and thats the only cost apart from the cost of the phone calls. I've got full internet and its brilliant compared to my old one with telefonica, it not only works but its really fast and I've gotta UK phone number so my calls to the UK are 1c a minute and their calls to me are local to them. I could have a spanish number as well for 10€ a month and cheap calls, but I havent got round to that yet!

So if thats what you mean by " ..... and by far better than those crappy wifi-homerouter solutions you find from time to time", then I'm amazed!!!


Jo xxx


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## Seb* (Mar 22, 2009)

jojo said:


> So if thats what you mean by " ..... and by far better than those crappy wifi-homerouter solutions you find from time to time", then I'm amazed!!!
> 
> 
> Jo xxx


When I am talking about cheap Wifi I am talking about "providers" who just set up a network of wifi homerouters and aerials, that way build a big network, that's connected to the internet. As much as those solutions work fine for small networks and communities they have a lot of weaknesses. Their biggest one is the frequence they are working on. They use a public band which gets used by other people's wifi routers, printers, alarm systems, cameras etc. Those electronic items can interfere and lower the line quality. Plus they rely on a close range between router and mast. Wimax on the other hand on the right frequency guarantees a high bandwidth and very stable connection over long range.

Decent wireless providers are using commercial frequencies they pay the governement fees to use. Those services are a lot less affected by influences I mentioned above and overall better in quality and reliability. And then it comes down to traffic shaping and network managing. Badly connected homerouters just can't handle a big amount of traffic.


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## casvid (May 6, 2009)

jojo said:


> There are loads of really cheap wifi/voip companies out there, Mercury, acox, bamboo, conecta4... to name but a few, they're all really cheap and really good, altho it depends on your area and whether you're near an aerial. I've just got a wifi thingy and for under 150€ and thats the only cost apart from the cost of the phone calls. I've got full internet and its brilliant compared to my old one with telefonica, it not only works but its really fast and I've gotta UK phone number so my calls to the UK are 1c a minute and their calls to me are local to them. I could have a spanish number as well for 10€ a month and cheap calls, but I havent got round to that yet!
> 
> So if thats what you mean by " ..... and by far better than those crappy wifi-homerouter solutions you find from time to time", then I'm amazed!!!
> 
> ...


*Thanks Jo, that's really useful.*


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## NotinUse (Oct 3, 2009)

*Telitec are throttling back all its existing customers*



Seb* said:


> Some words to Telitec:
> 
> - It's a wireless Wimax connection, which is a good and proven technology and by far better than those crappy wifi-homerouter solutions you find from time to time
> 
> ...


I agree 100% with what you said. In the beginning I couldn't fault Telitec and would gladly recommend it, indeed I did just that. However the service now is becoming comparable to dial up. Right now I am downloading a file at 15kbps which is a joke. This morning I was without a connection for 8 hours, last weekend 24 hours so anyone considering using Telitec for a business connection would be wise to take into account it's now become unreliable and it's underperforming by a mile.
The fact that Telitec are throttling back all its existing customers to cope with new sign ups could be it's downfall which is a shame because I love to see competition against Telefonica, just as I did against BT.
I want to see Telitec succeed but they really need to get their act together, and concentrate on its internet service and then move into other operations like mobile phones ect. 
To be honest I feared the worst the other week, their website had disappeared and all you could see was a folder containing root files for awstats, it was like deja vous.
Oh and if you want to watch any vids on YouTube go to the beach for half hour and it should be loaded up on your return


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## NotinUse (Oct 3, 2009)

Received today lets hope it was worth the wait.



> Please note;
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## G8NOF (Sep 14, 2010)

Hi Seb,
Nice to see someone who knows what they are talking about any change og being able to email you?

Rgds G8NOF

Ps New to these forums


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

G8NOF said:


> Hi Seb,
> Nice to see someone who knows what they are talking about any change og being able to email you?
> 
> Rgds G8NOF
> ...


Hi & welcome

why not ask your questions here in the forum - other might benefit from the info


after all - that's what forums are all about


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## G8NOF (Sep 14, 2010)

Seb,

Do you know if Telitec are using 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz as the links to the CPE


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## xicoalc (Apr 20, 2010)

Just to add my two penneth, I also have Telitec and agree with everything others have said. We have had it for a year now and the last couple of months it has been really really bad.

I cannot get a fixed landline where I live and so fast internet / voip are essential, and working from home i cannot afford poor quality calls..Telitec are becoming more and more unreliable. 

Any WISP type service can go down, all it takes is a storm so I have telitec plus another supplier - Wipzona. Now Wipzona was the 1st one I had and I got telitec becase of problems with Wipzona. I had Wipzona on "away" mode for a few months but have recently re-activated it and I have to say I am impressed.

Voice calls are crystal clear, downloads and uploads are MUCH MUCH faster than Telitec, and latency etc etc is low. Price wise they are favourable also (we always seem to get HUGE bills from Telitec).

I am not sure exactly which areas Wipzona cover, but well worth speaking with them to see what they can do for you (they have a facility to turn off when you go away).

Hope this helps.


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## Seb* (Mar 22, 2009)

G8NOF said:


> Seb,
> 
> Do you know if Telitec are using 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz as the links to the CPE


I can´t tell you what frequency exactly they use to reach the CPE. Back last year the sales person told me they are NOT using the free 2.4Ghz, they have a paid license for another spectrum. If this includes mast to CPE or only main nodes to their main gateway I cannot say, but would expect all connections to go via their main frequency.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Seb* said:


> I can´t tell you what frequency exactly they use to reach the CPE. Back last year the sales person told me they are NOT using the free 2.4Ghz, they have a paid license for another spectrum. If this includes mast to CPE or only main nodes to their main gateway I cannot say, but would expect all connections to go via their main frequency.


I know one of the supervisors on installation

I'll ask him if I see him later



If I can actually work out what to ask


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## NotinUse (Oct 3, 2009)

steve_in_spain said:


> Just to add my two penneth, I also have Telitec and agree with everything others have said. We have had it for a year now and the last couple of months it has been really really bad.
> Snip
> Hope this helps.


Actually quite the opposite for me. I am subscribed to this thread because I posted previously and very negatively I might add about Telitec.

Well I am still with them, and since my post last year all has been ok. There is the occasional blip but nothing nearly as bad as before, but with this kind of connectivity I guess that's to be expected.

Skype works really well, and all my telephony is made via Skype, and I have had some comments people find it hard to believe I am using voip.

Downloading I get up to 120kbps so a compressed film takes me on average 2 hours.

I don't know how you get huge bills Steve, I'm on a monthly Direct debit for €34 something for a 1mb connection.


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## xicoalc (Apr 20, 2010)

NotinUse said:


> Actually quite the opposite for me. I am subscribed to this thread because I posted previously and very negatively I might add about Telitec.
> 
> Downloading I get up to 120kbps so a compressed film takes me on average 2 hours.
> 
> I don't know how you get huge bills Steve, I'm on a monthly Direct debit for €34 something for a 1mb connection.


I am not the most technically minded but I would say 120kbps download is quite poor, I just tested my telitec and got 890kbps download and 780kbps upload. I tested wipzona also and got almost 2mb download and 600 upload (so upload is slower but it really is the download that counts).

The bills come from the call charges - I am supposed to be on a VOIP bundle but they always forget the give me my free minutes!

Actually, now for the VOIP i am subscribed to a great service through a 3rd party and I get much cheaper mobile UK & spain calls, and unlimited free landlines so deffo worth shopping round for your call packages!


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## Seb* (Mar 22, 2009)

steve_in_spain said:


> I am not the most technically minded but I would say 120kbps download is quite poor, I just tested my telitec and got 890kbps download and 780kbps upload. I tested wipzona also and got almost 2mb download and 600 upload (so upload is slower but it really is the download that counts).
> 
> The bills come from the call charges - I am supposed to be on a VOIP bundle but they always forget the give me my free minutes!
> 
> Actually, now for the VOIP i am subscribed to a great service through a 3rd party and I get much cheaper mobile UK & spain calls, and unlimited free landlines so deffo worth shopping round for your call packages!


I think he is maybe talking about KBs or KB/sec (Kilobyte per second) instead of kbps which is kilobits per second. 120 kbps would indeed be VERY slow for a 1mbit connection and nobody could be happy with this. Overall the personal performance often depends on the mast and transponder you are connected to and the time you actively use the internet (peak hours). Overall wireless connections are very volatile, especially in Spain it seems. Whenever there was a storm, thunderstorm or heavy rain the connections regularly dropped. I don´t fancy being on wireless with the Gota Fria coming up  

Little update about us. We have canceled our contract with Telitec and switched to a 3mbit ADSL connection supplied by Telefonica. To be totally fair the performance in the lasts months improved after we got priority on their main gateway and a helpful chap changed us to another transponder, but there were again outtakes and bad performance for about a week and the support wasn´t helpfull at all this time. Since we need the Internet for the job we had no other choice than to switch to Telefonica, who thankfully had us connected within days.

We had Telitec running as a backup in case Telefonica would not prove reliable enough. After two months we came to the decision to cancel Telitec, cause the ADSL line was just faultless.

To VoIP packages. We are using Skype in combination with a VoIP phone. Their Unlimited Europe package costs something around 45 GBP per year or so. It includes unlimited calls to all european land lines and a telephone number of your choice. Since all our calls are to Spain, Germany and the UK this is just perfect. Shopping around for good VoIP packages is definitely worth it.


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## xicoalc (Apr 20, 2010)

Seb* said:


> Little update about us. We have canceled our contract with Telitec and switched to a 3mbit ADSL connection supplied by Telefonica. .......who thankfully had us connected within days.


*oooh you know how jealous you make me jeje*

more than a year I have been waiting for Telefonica - and they keep saying "two more weeks" :flypig:....grrrr 

I really think it should be more like the UK where Telefonica (considering they have the monopoly) are obliged to provide a line just like BT are. I was told by my lawyer that a new law that came in a year or so ago means they MUST provide service anywhere within 3 months of requesting it....the problem is, the lawyer also said it would be very hard to force them, could take months or longer, and would cost a LOT 

Think of little old me, halfway up a mountain, next time there is a storm!!! :rain::rain::rain:


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## NotinUse (Oct 3, 2009)

steve_in_spain said:


> I am not the most technically minded but I would say 120kbps download is quite poor, I just tested my telitec and got 890kbps download and 780kbps upload. I tested wipzona also and got almost 2mb download and 600 upload (so upload is slower but it really is the download that counts).
> 
> The bills come from the call charges - I am supposed to be on a VOIP bundle but they always forget the give me my free minutes!
> 
> Actually, now for the VOIP i am subscribed to a great service through a 3rd party and I get much cheaper mobile UK & spain calls, and unlimited free landlines so deffo worth shopping round for your call packages!


My bad yes as seb pointed out its Kilobytes per second, otherwise yea the 2 hours for a film would be more like 2 years.
I had a look at the wipzona site and their pricing is very much similar to Telitec.
I never took up the offer of voip with Telitec, it's not that I didn't trust them but I always believe as they say "you should never put all your eggs into one basket" and besides skype has always served me well on a PAYG basis. 
You can get a better deal with a subscription but I top up with €10 and I know where I stand.
Saying that  I would be interested to know who you have voip with, links I think are not allowed, but if you could drop me a PM or a name I could use to search Google with then I'd be much obliged.

Gota Fria Seb, I'm too busy emptying buckets and mopping up to have time for the net :rain: but your absolutely correct in what you say, sometimes in can be a blip, or then sometimes it can be....... well enough to get cold turkey!


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## NotinUse (Oct 3, 2009)

Interesting so how much is the installation and activation? + IVA and what is the down and up speeds,
and what is the connection usage, unlimited or capped.


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## NotinUse (Oct 3, 2009)

Ok thanks I did look into it 2 years ago and it was in 4 figures then so the competition is having an effect. Besides the amount of transfer per month was useless to me which is why I went for Wimax but that option is limited to where folk live.

Pound sign try holding down Alt and type 156 using the number pad right of keyboard


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