Communication Matters

Telephone and Internet for Everyone

I would guess the first question to be answered is "why it is so difficult to get a normal telephone line in your house or office?"

Well, here are some reasons (there are others) :

1. The telephone network here in Malaga was designed many years ago. It was sized to cope with the population demands of the time with spare capacity to grow at normal rates. What happened was 3 million foreign people and a few 1,000 new companies came to Malaga and all wanted a telephone line.

2. The terrain and the constant construction is also a major issue. Telefonica would have to spend millions in road digging, laying cables and would have to drill through some very big mountains (for inland) to install new cables to deliver the connectivity to all the houses. Without a "return on investment" this is not a viable option for any company.

3. The majority of people that have houses here in Malaga do not live here full time, Telefonica could never expect to make a "return on the investment" - if you are not here you do not use the telephone, which means they make no profit (simple economics).

4. Businesses get priority over home owners - where there are limited telephone lines - because businesses make more telephone calls on a more regular basis than individuals, which means a business is more profitable than an individual and therefore more attractive.

Telefonica is going to be a "private" company in 2007, which means it will no longer have the obligation to deliver everyone a telephone line in Spain. It also means they will have "private investors" who will only want to see profit and not debt (unless there is a "return on investment"). For those that do not know, Telefonica was forced to write-off a debt of 30 billion a couple of years ago due to the 3G mobile license fiasco - this severely hit their cashflow.

Those that are waiting for Telefonica to deliver on their promises "a line will be installed soon!" should know that some people here in Spain have been waiting for over 8 years and still have no date for the installation.

And now some good news...

Today, a number of market leading wireless and satellite technology providers are developing broadband internet services that can carry voice, which do not depend on the existing telephone infrastructure - meaning that a house in a small pueblo can get connected without using the Telefonica network.

In Spain, there are 3 companies that have the license to supply high powered (5.8GHz) wireless broadband internet (Iberbanda, Alo Communications and Neo-Skys), which all have built their own networks are are companies that can deliver a quality broadband connection, however even these are a product of their own success and often these companies have limited capacity

Which leaves a new brand of small companies that have popped up overnight to cover local towns and villages they can deliver you broadband internet and fixed telephones (using VOIP) for 40 a month - here is a list of smaller local companies

Voice over internet (or VoIP) is a new technology that allows you to make a call over the Internet by converting analogue speech into digitised IP packets. VoIP requires a constant level of speech and connection to work properly - imagine your mobile phone when you are in a poor coverage area, it is the same principal. For VoIP to work, your internet connection must allow voice prioritisation and the equipment that you use to connect must have voice prioritised over normal internet usage (i.e. browsing).

The benefits of VoIP are many including:

1. You are no longer dependant on the normal telephone infrastructure.

2. You will have much lower costs for international call charges - you are by-passing the normal international call charging system.

3. You can have multiple international telephone numbers and not just Spanish (i.e. you can have a UK, German, French, etc.). which will dramatically reduce the cost to the people calling you - they can now call a local number instead of an international.

4. If you are a business, you can market multiple numbers in multiple countries, thus giving the appearance of a much larger organisation and also giving the potential customer the idea that you are local (even though your phones are ringing in Spain!)

5. The ability to keep your phone number's forever and also travel or relocate without losing your calls - you can connect your phone service wherever there is a quality broadband internet connection.