After trying unsuccessfully for the last 8 months with 2 different companies, I have finally got my ADSL service up and running, what an utter shambles the Telecommunications industry is in this country. As for "Customer Service" at these companies, don't make me laugh, there is none.

The 2 companies were Tele2, where after trying to connect to their ADSL service for 3 months, I gave up and then tried with Jazztel, who after applying for the service twice, I was eventually able to connect to the Internet yesterday, not bad considering I first applied in March for their service

So moral of the story, if you want ADSL here, steer well clear of all the companies with their special offers such as Jazztel, Tele2, Wanadoo etc and just get your service through Telefonica, sure you might pay a little more but you won't endure all the hassle of getting connected.

Oh yes and buy a Windows PC, I further complicated matters, because I'm a Mac user!!

hey EnglishPilot, glad you are up and running but...

quote:

if you want ADSL here, steer well clear of all the companies with their special offers such as Jazztel, Tele2, Wanadoo etc and just get your service through Telefonica,

... i have to disagree.

years ago when adsl was new here and when telefonica was the only one offering it, the waits were horrid. i had seen cases of people having to wait up to a year. telefonica blamed the high demand for these delays.

then the other players came into the game (the ones you mentioned and more) anfd the competition began for telefonica. they were all pretty shaky but then they started getting their acts together.

now, at this late date in the game, the special offers are trustworthy depending on which you choose. i never trusted tele2 for some reason.

i have 2 (one at home and the oter at the office) ya.com (http://www.ya.com) wifi connections and they are great!!! was at the beginning of theor offers and took them only 10 and 12 days to deliver the free router and kit and turn on my lines at hoem and at the office (respectively). i DUMPED my 2 telefonica adsl lines to change to ya.com seeing as i now pay half of what i paid with telefonica i also now get all of my calls in spain for free as well with the ya.com package deal.

all adsl providers will give you some problems and all customer service is crap so do not be afraid to go with the special deals. to g with the most expensive one (by far) makes no sense in a spain where all of them will have down time, may be somewhat of a hassle to get set up, and have poor cstomer service.

saludos,
jer...

I agree with Jer, I had a 1 Meg Line put in by Wanadoo, a year ago, and it was on in 4 days, never had the slightest problem. And now they have increased my Line to 2 Megs *FREE* for the exact same cost per month (except for a small admin fee)..which is no big deal for 2 Meg pipe, and all I can say is that I’m extremely satisfied with the service that I have had from Wanadoo over the last 2 years, and I convinced all of my family here to do the same deal, and they too have been pleased all along by the extra speed, and the stability of the service, which has never let us down in any way.

Cheers Wanadoo.....Saludos de Santiago

i think it is like the lottery.

i tried to get ya a year back or so and after 3 months of futility i decided to go dial-up with alo (my best friend is a bigwig there and she hooked me up). finally when i was ready to go back adsl, i chose telefonica because of all the horror stories everyone tells about the other companies (board members jules and roland were completely internet-less, phone-less, etc for several weeks).

miraculously telefonica came through in a matter of days and i've never had problems.

i'd love to switch to ya now, but honestly, you can't trust that it will happen. for every success story there is a horror story.

if the system truly worked, everyone would have the same experience. for now i'll stick with tfonica...i hate them, they are monopolistic crooks...but i'm online...that is all i care about now.

candela

Yes. I think that we all have had problems with one internet service provider or another while they were getting their acts together.

My nightmare was with Wanadoo. Who screwed me over in more than one way or another and I will never use them again.

I would however gladly switch between telefonica and Jazztel or een Ya depending on their most current options and what I needed at the time.

All things being just about equal with the down times and lack of customer service.

In the long run Telefonica will be forced to change, upgrade and improve their services and prices so it may be worth the little extra that you would pay to stick with them until you are a more experienced wheeler and dealer and bounce around from one to the other to always get the best deals.

I find it cheaper to piggyback someone else's connection via their unsecured wireless.

I'm going to have to get ADSL of my own sorted out shortly though so I will take these comments into consideration when deciding.

When I signed up for Telefonica a year ago, it only took three or four days to get ADSL up and running... It has never gone down.

But Jazztel has been hounding me lately with some pretty enticing offers and I'm thinking of switching. I wonder if it would go more smoothly since I already have ADSL established... I'd hate to have any significant downtime, since my livelihood depends on the illusion that I am a drone working around the clock. I should probably just leave well enough alone...

Has anybody had any experience with Auna cable internet provider?

Oh, and Jer, you mentioned imagenio on another thread. Does anyone have this? How does it work? Does it syphon off bandwith from the ASDL line and slow down everything else?

hey Megan, not sure if imagenio slows down the internet, you could ask at a telefonica store (and probably get a crap answer ).

re: changing adsl...

quote:

I wonder if it would go more smoothly since I already have ADSL established...

no, under normal circumstances when you change it is a nightmare. telefonica would "give you the down" pretty fast and then ya.com (or other) would "give you the up". you could be looking at 3 weeks downtime (this is what they say). i only changed at the office because i had my adsl at home to use during any downtime. for me it was pretty fast, at the office i stopped the telefonica on the 16th of the month, then signed up with ya the same day via their website. on the 18th, telefonica cut my adsl and by the 24th i had the ya.com kit and the line live and ready to go.

at home it was even easier since i had landlines (one mine and the other ena's). my line had the telefonica adsl so i ordered the ya.com adsl on ena's line and then when it was live and working, i cut the telefonica adsl on my line so no down time there

granted not everyone has 2 landlines at home so most can't do that.

Ola, a friend has auna cable internet and loves it.

saludos,
jer...

Megan, stopped by the telefonica store on calle mayor on my way home and they said that imagenio does not use the adsl bandwidth. apparently they hook ya up with a separate "aparatus" and the tv goes through a diff. channel.

saludos,
jer...

Thanks for the info on the ADSL switch and imagenio.

I think I'll probably just leave things as they are for the moment... got to focus on getting my degree "convalidated" and renew my visa... I think that's about all the hassle I can handle in one month.

Jazztel has been calling me again, trying to get me to switch with their enticing deal ASDL2 to current Telefonica customers. The guy swore repeatedly that there would only be six hours of downtime in the middle of the night if I made the switch. Sounds too good to be true...

Has anyone changed from Telefonica to Jazztel recently?

quote:

Sounds too good to be true...

then it probably is.

ok, get this...

two sales gals from "comunitel" came into my office the other day and wanted me to switch to their company.

they were offering phone line + adsl + national calls for 39.95 euros per month (the normal price is 49.95 but i was "special" so they promised to knock off another 10 spot if i signed up last week ). in theory, this would be all i would have to pay as the "phone line" above means the line maintenance which i (and everyone else) currently pays approx. 16 euros/month to telefonica.

they said there would be ABSOLUTELY NO DOWNTIME, during the change over, not even the 6 hours that jazztell is promising you mariposita.

i told them i would discuss it with my business partner when he returns from his trip to africa. when they heard that, like god sales ladies, they began to question my ability to make decisions on my own and basically said "be a man, make that decision without your partnet" i told them it was not like changing our toilet paper provider, this was a MAJOR decision to change our whole telecom/internet infrastructure for cryin out loud!!!

i told them to leave their offer on my desk and i would discuss it with my business partner.

when i now say i don't even have a business partner, i've said it all

saludos,
jer...

p.d. if anyone wants to take them up on the offer, their website is at http://www.comunitel.es .

I'm on Jazztel as well. Sounds good but will it really be 6 hours or 6 days? It took them 2 months to orginally connect me. 4 months to get a new router when the D-Link they sent me died. And if the service proves to be terrible will Telefonica charge you again for re-connection?