colvic
New member
Cynthia, have tried six times to e-mail the address you sent me but all have been returned so I'm now going "open".
First thing you need to do when you've reached Spain is to get a Spanish network sim card for your phone; I bought Telefonica Movistar ones for £20 each which included £18 worth of calls. You'll get different deals in different places. These cards work in your UK phone, especially if it was originally a contract phone, but they will unblock your phone for you if required. There are two other networks, Airtel-Vodaphone and Amena, with Vodaphone costing 12cents a minute for a local call between 4pm and 6am. Movistar is 15cents a minute and 4pm and 4am. There are special numbers for connecting to the internet for as little as 5cents a minute which is good for a mobile. If you haven'tgot a phone or whatever, they are more exspensive over here.
The cheapest way to phone the UK is by using a pre-paid service such as SMART CALL. Dial them up in Spain on 966 498 243 and an English Speaking operator will take you through the procedure for joining. You are asked for your credit card number and they take £30 +VAT and you are given a pin number and a number to ring to gain access to the service. When you dial you are given your balance check and then you get a UK dialing tone so there is no need for international codes etc.. The service can be used from phone boxes, homes, offices and Movistar mobiles where the call to Smart Call itself is free. The cost for dialing a UK land line is 17p a minute. A lot less than the £1 a minute you'll be charged for using your UK mobile number here.
For the internet I use the Sanish one of Telepolis, though you can use AOL etc. but the call charge is higher than the local rate to Telepolis, which has a special number for Movistar users. If you log onto their home page Telepolis.com or Telepolis.es at the top of the page are some file tabs one of which says connect to the internet (in Spanish); click on this and download the installation programme onto a floppy disk and you can then practice filling in the couple of pages which of course are in Spanish before you get over here as it is only for use in Spain. Being a foreign ISP means that you can almost guarantee getting the user name you want as it'll be in English. They use a POP3 mail system just the same as Outlook Express. I also have a Hotmail account which you can set up to collect your e-mails from upto four other e-mail addresses which is very useful in internet cafes, but mostly internet gaming rooms over here.
I use a Nokia 5110 and a 6110 to connect to the internet via the computer. With the Spanish pre-paid sim card I can access the internet, use the computer as an answering machine and send faxes. I can't receive faxes without getting a second number from Movistar and that has been a bit difficult, but as most Marinas just charge for sending a fax I have replies sentI to the marina office.
Hope all of this will be of use and if you need any furthet help my number is 0034 686 040 969.
First thing you need to do when you've reached Spain is to get a Spanish network sim card for your phone; I bought Telefonica Movistar ones for £20 each which included £18 worth of calls. You'll get different deals in different places. These cards work in your UK phone, especially if it was originally a contract phone, but they will unblock your phone for you if required. There are two other networks, Airtel-Vodaphone and Amena, with Vodaphone costing 12cents a minute for a local call between 4pm and 6am. Movistar is 15cents a minute and 4pm and 4am. There are special numbers for connecting to the internet for as little as 5cents a minute which is good for a mobile. If you haven'tgot a phone or whatever, they are more exspensive over here.
The cheapest way to phone the UK is by using a pre-paid service such as SMART CALL. Dial them up in Spain on 966 498 243 and an English Speaking operator will take you through the procedure for joining. You are asked for your credit card number and they take £30 +VAT and you are given a pin number and a number to ring to gain access to the service. When you dial you are given your balance check and then you get a UK dialing tone so there is no need for international codes etc.. The service can be used from phone boxes, homes, offices and Movistar mobiles where the call to Smart Call itself is free. The cost for dialing a UK land line is 17p a minute. A lot less than the £1 a minute you'll be charged for using your UK mobile number here.
For the internet I use the Sanish one of Telepolis, though you can use AOL etc. but the call charge is higher than the local rate to Telepolis, which has a special number for Movistar users. If you log onto their home page Telepolis.com or Telepolis.es at the top of the page are some file tabs one of which says connect to the internet (in Spanish); click on this and download the installation programme onto a floppy disk and you can then practice filling in the couple of pages which of course are in Spanish before you get over here as it is only for use in Spain. Being a foreign ISP means that you can almost guarantee getting the user name you want as it'll be in English. They use a POP3 mail system just the same as Outlook Express. I also have a Hotmail account which you can set up to collect your e-mails from upto four other e-mail addresses which is very useful in internet cafes, but mostly internet gaming rooms over here.
I use a Nokia 5110 and a 6110 to connect to the internet via the computer. With the Spanish pre-paid sim card I can access the internet, use the computer as an answering machine and send faxes. I can't receive faxes without getting a second number from Movistar and that has been a bit difficult, but as most Marinas just charge for sending a fax I have replies sentI to the marina office.
Hope all of this will be of use and if you need any furthet help my number is 0034 686 040 969.
