For nearly a year and a half we have been using two of the Vodafone internet dongles for our laptops.  They were costing us 90 euros a month for the two. They are fairly slow but better than going to internet cafes and wifi hotspots to check for emails. Our 18 month contract ends in August so we have just had Telefonica instal a phone line and broadband with wifi for us (about 40 euros a month). So we save 50 euros a month but the broadband doesnt seem much faster than the Vodafone dongles.
My Internet Explorer no longer works now either but Firefox is ok. I store a lot of useful link in IE though so I really could do with it. Any idea whats happened?

Hi,

Generally speaking Telefonica Broadband IS slow!

They regularly advertise 6 and 10Mbs services and up-grades for existing customers but the reality is that unless you live in Madrid or Barcelona or one of the other major cities you are unlikely to get anything like this kind of speed!

Also most of the other companies offering broadband use the Telefonica infrastructure so any outrageous claims they make are also to be taken with a degree of scepticism.

The chances are that the service you have is a 3Mbs at best and typically just 1Mbs. It all depends on your exact location. We are out in the campo and subscribe to this service and typically the only time we get anything like a fast service is at around 4 to 5am when the rest of the world is either already asleep or getting ready for sleep. Additionally as more people in Spain are becoming ADSL savvy the infrastructure in rural areas is becoming saturated. The best download speeds we can expect to get is about 150Kbs and this can drop to around 40kbs if just two or three other peple in the village come on line at the same time as we do.

I would suggest don’t use the Wi-Fi unless you really have to. Use a hardwired connection between the router and your computer; if the Wi-Fi you have is not encrypted then anyone in your locale can piggyback your signal and hence slow down your internet. Hard wired and with the Wi-Fi turned off this cannot happen.

As for your system no longer working in IE but OK in Firefox, this is far more likely to be an Computer/IE interface problem than anything to do with Telefonica.

Suggest you try this for starters…Select IE Browser>Tools>Clear Browsing History>then select and delete Temporary Internet Files, Cookies and History. Leave the other two options (Forms and Passwords)alone…

If this doesn’t clear the problem with IE then I’m afraid it sounds as if you may have picked up a Nasty from somewhere… there was a virus floating around a little while back that effectively blocked IE6 & 7 as a browser.

Hope this helps a little…

fb

have you speed text you net there ?

Go to http://www.testdevelocidad.es/  and post results of the speedtest here (Click on the button “Empezar” from the linked page to start speed test). Normally I advice people to ask for 6 Mb lines as >6 usually are slower because of line distance (Except if you’re in centers of cities/towns).

Regarding InternetExplorer must be some config issue at your computer.Go to tools -> internet options-> tab “connections” and delete all connections, select “Never dial for a connection” and make sure at lan setup/ie explorer set-up you’re not using any proxy server (As usually USB modems after setup autoconfig a proxy server where images are filtered/resized for 3G speed optimization).

Regards

It seems that its slow because of the Canguro firewall that Telefonica put on. We have now been to the Telefonica office in town and asked them to remove it. It costs 3 euros a month to not have Canguro. They told us that it would be removed in 72 hours (so probably tomorrow). Fingers crossed that I notice a difference.
The problem with IE is now sorted out and was because I had a box ticked to use a proxy. Must be something I did a while back while trying to use the BBC site or something? (in other words that was probably my fault).

jurdyr - 07 July 2009 04:32 PM

have you speed text you net there ?

:confused

Warren P - 03 July 2009 01:38 PM

Telefonica instal a phone line and broadband with wifi for us (about 40 euros a month).

What SPEED do you have ? 3mb ?
And it is SLOW ???

:(

DSB.

A Victor Meldrew Moment…

3Mbps is SLOW when its multiplexed with other users in the village and leads to download speeds of only 40Kbs, the system rapidly becomes saturated…it isn’t a problem with our computers; we have our two connected to the net simultaneously most evenings; if our neighbours decide to go online at the same time, it becomes immediately obvious that the system is multiplexed because our download speed drops dramatically. If other users in the village go online the system slows to a virtual standstill…

As I said, in the middle of the night or very early in the morning we can get download speeds approaching 200Kbs.
There are also problems if we connect with the USA or the UK (something we do a lot).

We ran a timing/routing exercise the other day and it seems there is a switching centre in Scandinavia somewhere which adds to the problem; signals in and out are delayed sufficiently to cause disruption during peak periods because this switching centre is used by the whole of Europe.

It is something we have come to live with in the campo, along with frequent power outages and the water being turned off…!

fb

This sounds like a very old installation, I guess that they will upgrade the central pbx, as this multiplexing bottleneck is solved since time at most places.  Other issues like switching, routers, as a recomendation i would advice to change your dns servers to 80.58.0.33 and 80.58.0.97, i’ve seen many places where there are using other dns or old dns servers and they resolve time and routings are quite bad.

regards

Pieter

Pieter Hi.

I ran a line speed check using the link you supplied and it came back with 1516kbs down and 253kbs up.
I then ran a similar speed check using Telefonica’s own speed checker and it came back with 956kbs down and 263kbps up…
Pretty much what you would expect I guess for a 1 or 3Mps service.
Any thoughts?

We are in a little village about 50Kms from Granada and the local switch centre (about 50 metres away) was upgraded about 9 months ago when Telefonica did away with the old 256kbs Ambito Rural ADSL system. our own installation is about two and a half years old…

fb

foxbat, are you a little bit techie ?? We could look at router for noise and line status. If you’re 50m away from local switching then you would have a better speed. Is the landline phone clear when you phone or has it lot of noise?

Regards

Pieter…
Landline is clear of noise; no problems there at all.
Within the house we have approx 10 metres of phone cable between wall socket and a two way splitter; then 5 metres between splitter and router. Phone line is routed via a new microfilter. We have two wired outputs from the router each one is a standard 1 metre length to the computers and no-one piggybacking the WiFi.

fb

please uesd this web siote to chq you neet http://www.speedtest.net/

Jurdyr;
Using your link; 1.17Mbs down and 250kbs up to server 200 miles away…
fb

foxbat, sounds ok for what’s line setup.. brand and model of router ??  Let’s discard possible problems.

Regards

Pieter

Speedtest.net says 25.0 Mb d/l and 0.26 Mb u/l, at 300ml away server. More than double my real d/l!!!

From testdevelocidad.es it indicates 8 mb d/l and 263 kb u/l which is more correct for my 10 mb dsl line (That runs as fast as my 6 mb home dsl).  I would advice to stick with testdevelocidad.es

Regards