I think locations may make a difference. We live near Granada.
We´ve had good and bad, although I would point out that they´re probably no worse than BT back in the UK in all honesty. There are more service providers coming on the scene so it´s always worth “shopping around” for what package is best for your needs.
When we first had our phone line installed, phoned them on a Monday and they had the line installed by the Wednesday. Quite a quick turnaround there, so a big tick there.
Having had the phone installed ok, we wanted to connect to the internet. ADSL via a landline is unavailable in our village as yet, so went for basic dialup. Happily enough they set up our account and gave us the number to dial through the modem. First bill came and to our horror, we were being charged the monthly subscription AND the calls via the modem, to the tune of over €400. We challenged this and it turns out they gave us the wrong number to dial. They did refund the incorrectly charged amount and gave us the correct number, after initially saying it was our fault and that they coul´nt have given us the incorrect number!!
Following bills then made little sense and did not correspond correctly to the calls we made and in the end we changed our calls to Europa, and just pay line rental to Telefonica. Since we changed to Europa, the calls are far cheaper, especially for UK calls, and we get a seperate number people from UK can call us at UK local rate.
My parents moved to a country property earlier this year. They already have an antiquated DOMO satallite phone system installed. We enquired about upgrading this to enable ADSL as well as a better phone system, having already looked into the packages on their websites they offered, we knew that “rural” systems were available “countrywide”, with “free” installation. Basically, when I called them they said it was´nt available yet, which is in fact rubbish. They basically were´nt interested in helping. I´ve heard it suggested though, that although they “offer” rural packages, they sometime pick & choose clients they want to help - this I hear from Spanish friends of mine, not just fellow Brits. From there I requested basic dialup internet for my parents. This did´nt work at all so was cancelled. Again, billing was incorrect and they charged for an engineers visit which did´nt even take place.
Net result, my parents are also using Europa for their calls, just paying line rental to Telefonica, but are still without any form of internet. At present we´re both looking at Iberbanda who offer ADSL internet and telephone systems at a reasonable price, via a dish. Going by the website, virtually everywhere can get it. Once we´re set up, I´ll post to let everyone know how they compare.
In the long run, I think that with newer service providers coming into the market, Telefonica is going to have to pull their finger out, or lose alot of business. I think that prices for ADSL will gradually come down. It´s a bit like it was in the UK a few years ago. BT held a monopoly, more providers came on the scene, competition grew between companies and prices came down. It´s bound to happen here too, may just take a few more years is all.
