The offer for surfing in the fast lane is huge in Spain.
....But also confusing. Christian Müller, official distributor and
mobile phone service provider of "CMC" in Can Pastilla brings light into the tariff jungle.
Whether video chatting with friends or business partners, sending data in the gigabyte range or streaming videos and movies: the requirements for an Internet connection - whether for business or private reasons - are higher than ever, especially in times of coronavirus. In Spain, almost all telephone and mobile phone providers offer fiber optic internet connections. But what are the offers and tariffs like in Mallorca? IZ asked Christian Müller, Managing Director of the German mobile service provider CMC in Can Pastilla, to explain the current offer from "Fibra Optica" on the island.
In Germany, Austria and Switzerland, a distinction is made between network operators,
connection network operators and providers. Is this also the case in Spain?
In Spain, a distinction is made exclusively between direct network providers - such as "Movistar", "Vodafone" or "Orange" - and providers or virtual network operators such as "Yoigo" or "Lowi".
The Spanish government announced almost three years ago that Mallorca would also have a comprehensive fiber optic network by 2020 at the latest. Was the promise kept?
This was announced, but the reality is somewhat different. Although coverage with fiber optic technology is good in areas with a high population density, there is still some catching up to do in rural areas. The subsidy costs of 2.8 million euros provided by the government to date for the expansion of the fiber optic network are currently far from sufficient.
Is a fiber optic Internet line absolutely necessary or is a "normal" DSL (ADSL in Spanish, editor's note) connection not already sufficient?
A fast internet connection at home and a mobile connection with a high data volume rate are particularly important in the currently rapidly growing home office sector in order to be able to work online in a sustainable and stable manner.
The data transfer rates quoted by Spanish network providers for their fiber optic connections are almost always identical for uploading and downloading. A nice marketing gimmick or is there really no difference in terms of data transfer rates in Mallorca?
The specified transmission speeds in Mallorca are actually relatively stable and do not deviate significantly from the figures given by the network operators. Deviations and problems regarding the slowing down of the data flow mainly occur with Wifi connections. In other words: The more devices - smartphones, tablets, laptops, PCs - in a household that access the wifi network, the greater the risk of data flow problems. Data streams from the router usually run much more smoothly via a cable connection.
Which fiber optic internet provider would you recommend to your customers in Mallorca?
I would first ask every customer what they need an internet connection for. For professional purposes, for streaming, for surfing news and other content on the Internet or for sending emails or larger data content? Then there is the question of the local network coverage of the respective provider. And then, of course, there is the question of what the Internet provider service is worth to me. You often pay too much money for existing contracts. Or you are simply too lazy to switch to a cheaper provider. I myself recently switched - and am now saving more than 550 euros a year by switching to the well-known German provider O2, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Spanish company Movistar. And I didn't even have to change the Movistar router for that. Especially in these corona-ridden times, every euro saved counts double.
Further information at
BACKGROUND: WHAT EXACTLY IS "FIBRA OPTICA"?
An optical fiber (in Spanish "Fibra Optica) is a thin thread of glass, similar in thickness to a human hair. In telecommunications, glass fiber is used as an optical waveguide (FO). Although they are so thin, they can transmit data at almost the speed of light.
Many individual optical fibers are combined in a fiber optic cable. The fiber optic cables are laid to form a fiber optic network, even over long distances. Such a fiber optic network enables the simultaneous use of data-intensive services on the Internet. These services include streaming videos or downloading and uploading large amounts of data for business customers, for example for industrial applications or in medicine.
Data transmission via fiber optics differs from transmission via DSL in that upload and download speeds are significantly higher. DSL connections run over copper-based telephone lines. The data transmission rate decreases with increasing distance. A data line based on fiber optics enables much higher bandwidths than a copper line, both for uploads and downloads, because the physical attenuation here is low.
With a fiber optic connection to the home, customers can generally access transmission rates of up to one gigabit per second. From a technical perspective, even higher bandwidths are possible, but 1,000 megabits per second is currently sufficient for current Internet usage scenarios. In comparison, copper-based technology is exhausted: a copper line achieves a maximum of 250 megabits per second.
Here is a comparison of some providers 100MB Fibra Optica
