Change

I had a bit of a problem with an email group the other day. I'd never seen one before and it took me a few minutes to work it out. The person who'd set up the email also put together a group on WhatsApp before mistakenly deleting themself from the group. I bacame the group administrator by random asignation. Again it took me a few minutes to work out what was going on and reinstate him. Crikey I thought. I'm getting old. Losing touch with the technology.

We have a general Election on 20 December. I was listening to some pundit, presumably from a party that hadn't done well out of a newspaper poll, saying that polls were no longer a fair reflection of the voting population. His argument was that, because the pollsters telephoned people randomly on fixed phones, the sample was self selecting as only old people have fixed phones now. I bristled. That's not true I thought defensively. It's true that even I access the Internet more often from a tablet or my phone than I do from my laptop. Still though the serious work is done on the bigger screen with a proper keyboard and through an ADSL connection that trickles in through the telephone socket in the living room. It's going to be a long time before 4G, or any fast, reliable mobile network, is available in Culebrón or anywhere else outside the bigger population areas if the experience of the older 3G network is anything to go on.

Over the years that we've been in Spain we've nearly always had a contract with Telefónica or it's more recent incarnation - Movistar - the old state monopoly provider. However, because we've moved around quite a bit and often had second residences we've tried all sorts of other providers and used various methods of getting Internet access. All of the providers have pluses and minuses but, in Culebrón, Movistar was, at one time, our only option and until recently it has also been, clearly, the best option. We've had problems from time to time but generally the service has been fine. There is a problem now though; the highest Internet speed they can provide is 3MB. It just isn't enough. A local firm currently offers a heart quickening 8MB and it's a few euros a month cheaper too.

A couple of days ago, after prevaricating for ages I finally signed up. The new provider warned me to expect lots of calls from Movistar trying to persuade me to stay. Actually I had a sneaking hope that Movistar would pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat and find those extra 5MB from somewhere. In that case I would have happily stayed with them. Instead their first salvo today was a text message warning me that I could be penalised for breaking contractual arrangements. They stressed that I would have to return any equipment that belongs to them. I laughed at the thought of returning their six year old non functioning router and the 11 year old fixed handset.

Cowardly as I am, I have never responded well to being pushed around. Cajoling, wheedling and wearing down work a treat - but threatening no.

My guess is that there will be fun to come as we change over. Pity there won't be any rabbits.

Phone boxes

The other day, when I would have gone to Valencia on the train if I hadn't left my phone on the kitchen table loaded with the train tickets, I did a bit of a tour around Alicante as compensation. In Fontanars de Alforins I saw a phone box and I thought I'd phone Maggie to tell her what I was up to. I didn't know her number (it's on the memory of my mobile, why bother to learn it?) but I do know the house number. The instructions on the public phone looked very complex and, when I tried to push a 1€ coin into the slot it didn't seem to want to go in, so I gave up.

I read an article today that says there are twelve phone boxes in the Plaza del Sol in the very centre of Madrid. On the day the journalist checked just one of them had been used and, at that, just three times. The remaining public phones throughout Spain are due to be phased out from December 2016 unless the Government does an about face.

The article said there are 25,820 phone booths left in Spain. In 2000 there were over 100,000. Not a single one of them now covers their maintenance costs which is why Telefónica, the old state monopoly telephone company which maintains the network, is keen to see the back of them. They are currently obliged to provide one public phone per 3,000 people in large and medium sized communities and at least one in villages of less than 1,000 inhabitants.

I was talking about this to Maggie. "We have one in the village don't we?" I asked. "Where?" she countered. "In the square." But we checked and there isn't one. Maybe it was by the social centre. Anyway it isn't there now if it ever was.

I don't suppose it's surprising in a country with 45 million inhabitants and 50 million mobile phones that phone boxes are a thing of the past. They didn't really last long. Although there was a token operated phone in Retiro Park in Madrid in 1928 it wasn't till 1966 that Franco's regime began installing coin operated booths the length and breadth of the country. I used to use them to phone home when I was on holiday. One model had a coin shute where the peseta coins rolled down a gentle slope into the coin mechanism where they were eaten up by the remarkably expensive international phone calls. Most of them didn't bother with providing a connection anyway - they were simply happy to swallow the coins.

It's strange though how things, once so commonplace, think red phone boxes, think Doctor Who, can disappear almost unnoticed.

Opaque

Movistar is a big phone company here - they have both fixed and mobile services. Their customer service number is 1004. Last week 1004 called me repeatedly but I missed or ignored every call.

Sunday: a Sunday as it should be where I didn't get around to putting my contact lenses in till late evening and where I avoided proper work all day. I was too lazy even to clean the bath or hoover the floor. On the telly I watched one of those films where the busy executive realises the error of their ways at Christmas. The World becomes a better place.

In between the Christmas stories I watched the ads. Something I rarely do. The Movistar people seemed to have a good offer on for those of us who have both their fixed and mobile phone packages. There were two offers and the website suggested we were eligible for both.

But the Software said no to one offer. Odd that. I could have sworn we were paying for a 3Mb package but apparently not. I didn't fret. Even the poorer of the two offers saves us 20€ per month. They emailed me the contract and everything. The next day though they changed their minds. The exchange in Pinoso just isn't up to it they said. They told me all about their constant efforts to bring the most up to date technology to even we country bumpkins but we'd have to wait just a little longer to get this particular offer.

There's another advert on the telly at the moment for Golden Lady tights. Panty tupido it says. I didn't know the word tupido but it had a nice ring to it so I looked it up. The ad is for opaque tights.

Lots of things here are still very opaque to me.

Wired

The firm we buy our Internet services from, Movistar, is the most expensive broadband provider in the whole of the European Union.

Movistar charge over 70% more for midspeed broadband access (2mgb to 10mgb) than the average price of the other old state monopolies across the European Union. The average is 34€ and Movistar charge 58€

Even the cheapest broadband access in Spain comes out nearly 11% more expensive than the median of the other European offers. So your average European pays 29€ whilst the most savvy Spaniard pays 32€. Goodness knows how much the difference is between the best European offer and what we pay.

Spaniards get overcharged even more on the over 10mgb lines where the cheapest Spanish is 35€ against 30€ European average - over 16% difference.

Apparently one of the big variations is that most of the headline prices on the various Spanish offers do not include the line rental as part of the package.

Just in case you think we are particularly stupid in paying over the odds we don't have much of a choice. Until very recently the only operator who would provide our house with broadband was Movistar. Nobody wants to provide infrastructure to we country bumpkins.

Miracles go hand in hand

So we were reconnected. We were back in touch but the speed was running at less than 1mb. Slow. Youtube videos stalling, 10 minutes to download the Archers podcast (I know, I know but some people can't let go of pork pies) and longer to upload snaps to Picassa.

The thing is we were on the Internet here before and we had 3mb. When the engineers put in the line they were optimistic about the speed we may be able to achieve. So I phoned Telefonica. The line to customer services was as crackly as that cowboy who wore a brown paper waistcoat, brown paper shirt and brown paper trousers - the one who was arrested for rustling. Nonetheless the South American customer services person didn't give up on me. "Can we have something faster?" I asked. "You can have 3mb" she finally answered after a very creditable 14 minutes on the phone. "It will take about 8 days" she said and we left each other as firm friends.

We have 3mb today. Incredible really. We asked for 6mb, we were offered 1mb which we took (no option) but all the time there was an option of 3mb. Splendid service.

A miracle

"Hello, this is Telefonica, we're down by the bar in Culebrón, can you come and fetch us?"

So finally, after nearly seven weeks of waiting we have the phone and Internet back.

We had all the cables and what not still in place so we'd expected nothing more than someone tapping something into a computer at the exchange but the engineers spent ages up and down ladders on some nearby properties and then had to restring a cable from the telegraph pole. But who cares? We're back in touch.

Murphy, stronger than gravity

I'm sitting in the Parador in Ceuta. I have views over the Strait of Gibraltar. We are about 650kms from home. We have been waiting for Telefonica to install a phone line since late June and the engineer rang about ten minutes ago to say he was on his way. I didn't tell him we weren't there. I rang our neighbour to see if he could let the engineer in. He wasn't keen, I could tell, but sterling chap that he is he said he would. Who knows we may have a phone line by the time we get back to Europe.

Telefonica - episode 84

"But you don't have a proper address," "What?" "You don't have a proper address so we've cancelled your order!"

That was the drift of a conversation with the phone company when I checked again today why we are still without either phone or Internet. So I made another order.

Five minutes ago the local phone engineer rang my mobile - "About this phone to install in Calle Garcia," "We're not in Calle Garcia, we're in Culebrón, number 5, near the goats" "Then you can't have what you've ordered, you can't have 6Mgb in Culebrón, you can only have 1Mgb" "Fine, that'll do." A voice cut into the conversation, presumably from Telefonica Central, "OK, we can modify the order."OK, bye." And the line went dead.

Is there a Telefonica van headed our way, will we still get the special offer price.

Some things

I spoke too soon about Telefonica. We've ordered a new phone line and Internet. The engineer phoned the day after the order and I wrote my defence of Telefonica over on Life In Ciudad Rodrigo. The engineer phoned again the day of our journey over here from Salamanca. I had to put him off of course and I rather lost the drift of the conversation but he seemed a bit concerned that we were in a village rather than, as he he had presumed, in the town. He hasn't phoned since we've been back and all we can get from Telefonica's customer services is that, in line with the contract, they will provide the line within 30 days. Cutting edge technology then?

Maggie needs a medical certificate for work. We bought the form from a tobacconist. All she needed was a doctor to fill it in. She rang for an appointment but, because she signed on to the Castilla y Leon health care system she had to go into Pinoso to sign back on to the Valencia system. Luckily it was Thursday. It's only possible to register with a doctor on Tuesday and Thursday between 12 and 2.

Our architect rang to say he had the certificate that we need to take to the Town hall to sign off the work on our roof. His stamp, guarantee of the such and such college of architects, proves that it's not a gash job done by Bob the Builder - he, he.

I popped into the Technical office at the Town Hall to hand over the form so their people could sign off the work. There's only one bloke I can deal with (Luckily I helped this man to buy a motorbike exhaust from the USA.) Unfortunately he wasn't there. In fact when I think about it he's never there. In turning up at the office around twenty times in the course of this roof repair he's been there maybe five times. To give him his due I do usually go at breakfast time - anytime between 9.45 and 12.15 - and he does have a notice by his desk to say he only deals with walk in punters on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The appointment I have with him is for the 20th July. Poor dear, obviously rushed off his feet.

Roberto wasn't in the Culebrón Bodega when Maggie dropped in for a wine transfusion. Antonio, the normally taciturn brother, was remarkably talkative. He showed us the new insulation in the olive oil storage shed and told us what he thought about climate change.

We have been slashing back the undergrowth in our "garden". A good Spanish garden is clean - i.e. bare earth between the plants. I am amazed at how much vegetation can be supported by 1000m² of soil. The piles of rakings have spiritual links with that butter mountain, wine lake etc. Superabundance. At least the scorching sun has turned most plants into brown crackly things. The picture is of one of the two piles so far.

It has been warm, around 36ºC maximum most days and a minimum around 22ºC, since we got back. It was cloudy yesterday and we had a thunderstorm and downpour to test our new guttering. It seemed to work.