Phone and internet services in Spain: what (else) could go wrong?

Following my move to Barcelona in 2001 it was only a matter of weeks before I was summoned to appear in court. Not that I was on trial, you understand, I was acting as a witness for my other half defending herself against an action brought by phone operator Tele2.

They lost.

Looking back, it was a taste of things to come, as we’ve experienced so many telephone/internet problems over the years that it hardly seems real.

telephone

Disconnected (except when we wanted to be)

For instance, there was the time when a Telefonica engineer came to fix our telephone line and – I assume it was inadvertently – disconnected our ADSL. Telefonica wouldn’t send the engineer back, as they said it was for Wanadoo to sort out as our internet provider.

That issue took six weeks for them to sort out, with me trying to run an internet based business on dialup.

And then when we moved from Barcelona it proved a little tricky to cancel our ADSL from what was now Orange. We received phone call after phone call from them, then from their debt collectors, lawyers and everyone under the sun until finally they gave up.

Epic fail from Vodafone

And moving from Barcelona we ordered a phone line and ADSL from Vodafone, who we both used for mobile.

Unfortunately they never connected the phone line and after months of trying to get them to come and sort it and dozens of calls to their various helplines we gave up and signed up with Movistar, as Telefonica is now known.

The line was installed and we finally got 3MB ADSL rather than the dodgy 3G connection we’d been using that only really worked well between midnight and 10 a.m.

Based on that poor experience with Vodafone – even though we repeatedly told them that they hadn’t installed a line many of their helpline operators started going through their standard procedure of asking what lights were on the router – and given that I was paying over the odds for my mobile phone connection last month I decided to switch.

Movistar. What could go wrong?

It was a fairly easy decision to make the switch to Movistar, since they already provide our phone and internet connection, and for a small increase in our monthly fee – around €9 – I would get around the same call time as on my Vodafone plan, free SMS messages and much greater capacity over 3G internet. And although this wasn’t a reason for going with them, they threw in six months of their TV over internet package plus sports channels, which is worth €35 or so a month.

Although we’re unlikely to keep that – on the whole I’d rather watch YouTube – it had the added benefit of upgrading our line from 3MB to 10MB, which was an unexpected bonus and welcome in a household that has extremely heavy internet usage.

In fact I ordered the service on a Thursday evening and the next morning had an engineer round upgrading the router and installing the TV decoder. Unbelievable service and so far, so good.

However, based on my previous experiences with telephone/internet providers I should have realised it couldn’t last.

When ordering they told me I’d need to go to a shop to pick up a Movistar SIM card, and this was later confirmed in another call. I was also told my account would be transferred on the Monday morning and so it was no surprise when my Vodafone account was cut off on time.

However, after installing my new SIM card from a Movistar shop in Platja d’Aro my iPhone wasn’t playing ball. Returning to the shop I was told it might take up to 24 hours before it worked. Great.

Dealing with a SIM locked mobile

Driving home I started wondering whether they were just fobbing me off and a quick search on Google turned up the problem. I should have thought about this before, but my phone was locked so that it would only work with Vodafone España.

Surely this must be common enough that Movistar shop assistants can advise customers what to do; at least I’m pretty technical and self reliant when these issues come up.

Anyway, another search revealed a website where you could get your phone unlocked and so with no choice I paid $79 and waited.

And waited…

Check your lock status & unlock your phone

Check if your phone has SIM lock activated for free here.

Permanently unlock your phone here.

Meanwhile, despite being told on two separate occasions to collect a new SIM card from a Movistar shop, they decided to courier one to me all the same. Go figure.

Eventually after five days my phone was unlocked, I installed the Movistar SIM card and my mobile and 3G internet access was restored. Regular service is restored, but it seems like you can’t sign up for any internet or phone service in Spain without a whole host of problems.

What is your experience? Leave a comment below.

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