# Getting Internet for a Apartment in Alicante



## SpanishFly (Aug 16, 2016)

I have no idea what services are available.

The internet is crucial to my work/income and I'm wondering if anyone can help alleviate my worries on this...

Is there some sort of mobile internet service I can buy a dongle for or could I get broadband to the apartment easily there as well or instead?


----------



## kdsb (May 3, 2015)

SpanishFly said:


> I have no idea what services are available.
> 
> The internet is crucial to my work/income and I'm wondering if anyone can help alleviate my worries on this...
> 
> Is there some sort of mobile internet service I can buy a dongle for or could I get broadband to the apartment easily there as well or instead?


I am not in Alicante but nearby in Albacete, and for us internet was also critical for work since my husband is working remotely. The way it worked here is that we called Movistar as soon as we had our apartment (actually my landlady made the initial call to help us out since I get nervous speaking Spanish on the phone). They called me back to confirm all the details since they had to speak to me directly and told me they would call in about a week the day they were available to come. 6 days later they called us and came and installed it in our property. It is very fast internet for not much money (I can look up details if you want).

The apartment we lived in hadn't had internet before so they had to install wiring, etc. It's possible it is an easier process if you are living somewhere that at some point had internet.

In the interim while waiting for internet we were able to tether our computers to our US phones that had an international data plan.


----------



## tebo53 (Sep 18, 2014)

I had movistar fibre optic installed within a few days of ordering it. Very fast and reliable. The only drawback is they insist you take on a land line even if you don't want it.

€58.40 per calendar month.

Steve


----------



## SpanishFly (Aug 16, 2016)

Thank you for the help!

60 euro a month seems a lot though! All the other bills are much cheaper than UK! ;-)

In UK it is about 15 euro per month. Wonder why its so expensive there?


----------



## tebo53 (Sep 18, 2014)

SpanishFly said:


> Thank you for the help!
> 
> 60 euro a month seems a lot though! All the other bills are much cheaper than UK! ;-)
> 
> In UK it is about 15 euro per month. Wonder why its so expensive there?


I had fibre optic internet with Virgin Media in the UK, with land line, and it was a similar price.

What did you get for €15 :confused2:

Steve


----------



## SpanishFly (Aug 16, 2016)

All the major broadband internet providers do it for £15 a month here, you get telephone line and unlimited internet. One of the apartments I'm going to look at includes free internet so if I get that it would save me 60 euro per month (unless I find a cheaper way to connect) but most of them do not have net access.

Does anyone know anything about wifi dongles or hotspots?


----------



## tebo53 (Sep 18, 2014)

SpanishFly said:


> All the major broadband internet providers do it for £15 a month here, you get telephone line and unlimited internet. One of the apartments I'm going to look at includes free internet so if I get that it would save me 60 euro per month (unless I find a cheaper way to connect) but most of them do not have net access.
> 
> Does anyone know anything about wifi dongles or hotspots?


I used to use an Orange Internet dogleg to access the Orange Internet. It cost me €10 for 1gb card which I only used to access and send emails and checking my bank account daily. It soon used up 1gb.

I also used the towns public wifi system, that cost €30 per calendar month, pay as you go type and unlimited use and not very reliable especially when a lot of people were using it.

Can you tell me the internet companies that you know where I can get unlimited internet use plus a land line for €15 per month because to be honest I did extensive research into cost etc when I came here and nobody does fibre optic internet for the prices you suggest! I could then cancel mine and save up to €45 per month 

Steve


----------



## kdsb (May 3, 2015)

We used our US phones as hotspots while we were waiting for WiFi. We have unlimited data and free tethering through our US plan. The connection wasn't great inside our big concrete building, but it worked well enough for email, etc. and was sometimes good enough to stream.


----------



## chrisnation (Mar 2, 2009)

tebo53 said:


> I used to use an Orange Internet dogleg to access the Orange Internet. It cost me €10 for 1gb card which I only used to access and send emails and checking my bank account daily. It soon used up 1gb.
> 
> I also used the towns public wifi system, that cost €30 per calendar month, pay as you go type and unlimited use and not very reliable especially when a lot of people were using it.
> 
> ...


I think Spanish Fly was referring to the UK providers at GBP15/month. That is certainly my experience. 

Time for some UK providers to come in and compete with the overpriced Spanish companies. I find Spanish comms to be about 10 years behind UK provision.


----------



## SpanishFly (Aug 16, 2016)

Exactly I was surprised by the difference compared to UK price since everything else isless expensive in Spain.

I've still not found a solution to this. I want to find some kind of dongle I can plug into the computer and get mobile internet. I don't use a mobile phone with internet.


----------



## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

tebo53 said:


> I used to use an Orange Internet dogleg to access the Orange Internet. It cost me €10 for 1gb card which I only used to access and send emails and checking my bank account daily. It soon used up 1gb.
> 
> I also used the towns public wifi system, that cost €30 per calendar month, pay as you go type and unlimited use and not very reliable especially when a lot of people were using it.
> 
> ...


I have fibre optic broadband from a local cable TV company (nowhere near Alicante, though). We don't have to take the cable tv or a landline (we don't want one) and get unlimited usage for €18 per month, inc IVA. We are contracted for 20mb, but recent speed tests are showing that we are actually gettiing 30mbps download speed. I could get higher speeds from them if I wanted to pay more.

That could have something to do with the fact that Movistar have installed their fibre optic service in my town, and I could get their 300mb service (plus landline which I don't want) for the €58.40 as you say. I don't think it's worth the price difference for me, 30mb seems to work fine for everything we need, and we download a lot of TV programmes, films, etc.


----------



## chrisnation (Mar 2, 2009)

SpanishFly said:


> Exactly I was surprised by the difference compared to UK price since everything else isless expensive in Spain.
> 
> I've still not found a solution to this. I want to find some kind of dongle I can plug into the computer and get mobile internet. I don't use a mobile phone with internet.


I guess it's because Telefonica is where BT was 10-15 years ago. The infrastructure side of the company has to split off, like Broadreach has from BT, to allow competitors a reasonable chance to compete.


----------

