Telephony Services Chapter One
I once used to curse BT, I am sure it was a national pastime back in the UK. Now it seems that although I thought the grass was greener on the other side, it appears I was a little hasty with my view.
The telephone does not seem to be too important here in Spain, granted mose people have mobile phones but judging by the lack of conventional services, they need to have them. Spain in not a small country and there are vast areas, even now that are barren and do not have the most basic services like electricity and water, so it is safe to assume, in the grand scale of things a telelphone is the least of a persons requirements here.
The main provider of telephony services here in Spain is Telefonica. Once you have been in Spain for some time you will realise that people pronounce this in different ways. Firstly you have the normal pronounciation teleefoneeka, ok that's good then the alternative is teleeuslessbloodynophonefonica, a little more difficult to get your tongue round but you will know by the expression on the face of the person, which pronounciation they favour.
With my experiences of Telefonica I am more inclined to use the second pronounciation. I must admit I was amongst the ever hopeful band that arrived on these shores feeling confident that everything that I had in the UK that was accepted as the norm, would be available to me here, the only problems that I thought I might encounter were those of language, and well sign language is universal..............................isn't it?
Ok with British Telecom you move into a new home ring them up, order a phone/line whatever and they tell you there and then that they will install your phone in 2-3 days ...tops. So simple that we never think well is this a good service or a bad one, I certainly did not even consider it. Spain is a tad different and of course I would not like to apply this as a generalism because I am sure that in other areas it must be different. Or is my once youthful optomisim kicking in again!
The first week I arrived I moved into my Mum's place, you know like you do, and until you have found your feet, as I needed the phone line for the internet it was fairly essential that I first got the phone updated (I will explain that one in a minute) and also arrange for ISDN so that mothers phone line was not tied up with me surfing the net and generally working. Seemed simple enough, phrase book in hand and off to the phone. Dialled the number and spoke is my best spanish at length about how I wanted the radio ( yes remember that red word) phone removing and a dedicated line putting in and then I wanted ISDN. There was a silence and the lady from Telefonica said "Si" and promptly hung up.
We continued this game for a few days, the lady from Telefonica and I, but it was clear to me that sooner or later one of us was going to get bored.....yes you guessed I caved in first. It occurred to me that maybe a different approach was needed, after much head scratching I came up with a brainwave......find yourself a friendly spaniard who also speaks English....what a cunning plan...well it would have been had I been able to locate someone with those talents, however I did get a spanish lady who was involved with a German guy, who in turn kinda spoke English.
Hey hey I thought we are on a roll, all I need to do is explain what I need to my german friend who in turn would explain this to his Spanish girlfriend and then she in turn phones Telefonica. The theory was technically good however it seems that in practise, this plan stunk. We are now on Plan 3 subsection 4a and counting.
Ok next in the line of cunning plans is this. I phone telefonica, ask for an english speaker, Bt has operators who speak different languages I know this so it seemed logical that Telefoncia did too. Well this plan half worked I did indeed get a lady who spoke some english, not a lot and mostly in the Janet and John school of reading but at least it was a base form of english. I ordered the ISDN yes she said "10 day", wow I thought we scored here this is not so hard, what I failed to ask was "which 10 days, which month or for that matter which year" I know this sounds crazy but as a tip to those of you out there contemplating a move here, when enquiring about products or services, and they tell you Tuesday, be sure that you remember to ask which month and year. Oh and as an after thought when they say "manana" that does not really mean tomorrow irrespective of what you may have read or been taught. Manana actually means any day after today and there is really no time limit on this.
Anyway I digress, and that is real easy to do here, 10 days came and went and Nada....nothing so I phoned again and asked when they thought this would happen. They did not have any idea of who I was and no record of my order!!
The dialogue with Telefoncia continued for some time, eventuall I did speak to someone at Telefonica who had more that a small grasp of English and not the Janet and John variety.
We spoke at length, which is itself was refreshing, where this very nice lady told me that 1) I could not update the phone as no landlines were available in my area, only radio phones and they had no plans to put in lines in the near future....maybe 4 years maybe more she told me.
At this point I needed to be picked up from the floor and brought round, where was I??? In the amazon?? Then she cheerfully told me that there was no chance at all of ISDN however she continued there is a possibility that you may be able to connect to the internet via the radio phone. I was ok....well kinda ok after a few brandy's.
Not to be defeated I set up my computer and managed to get online having waded through the complicated spanish sign up pages, and YES I connected at 14kbps..................Doh! It was like watching paint dry. After some consideration I decided that there was not enough of my life left to wait for pages on the internet to load at this speed so I decided that more needed to be done to achieve this and I would have to hatch more and more cunning plans.........this is where my training in the University of cunning under Professor Sly came to the fore.
The telephone does not seem to be too important here in Spain, granted mose people have mobile phones but judging by the lack of conventional services, they need to have them. Spain in not a small country and there are vast areas, even now that are barren and do not have the most basic services like electricity and water, so it is safe to assume, in the grand scale of things a telelphone is the least of a persons requirements here.
The main provider of telephony services here in Spain is Telefonica. Once you have been in Spain for some time you will realise that people pronounce this in different ways. Firstly you have the normal pronounciation teleefoneeka, ok that's good then the alternative is teleeuslessbloodynophonefonica, a little more difficult to get your tongue round but you will know by the expression on the face of the person, which pronounciation they favour.
With my experiences of Telefonica I am more inclined to use the second pronounciation. I must admit I was amongst the ever hopeful band that arrived on these shores feeling confident that everything that I had in the UK that was accepted as the norm, would be available to me here, the only problems that I thought I might encounter were those of language, and well sign language is universal..............................isn't it?
Ok with British Telecom you move into a new home ring them up, order a phone/line whatever and they tell you there and then that they will install your phone in 2-3 days ...tops. So simple that we never think well is this a good service or a bad one, I certainly did not even consider it. Spain is a tad different and of course I would not like to apply this as a generalism because I am sure that in other areas it must be different. Or is my once youthful optomisim kicking in again!
The first week I arrived I moved into my Mum's place, you know like you do, and until you have found your feet, as I needed the phone line for the internet it was fairly essential that I first got the phone updated (I will explain that one in a minute) and also arrange for ISDN so that mothers phone line was not tied up with me surfing the net and generally working. Seemed simple enough, phrase book in hand and off to the phone. Dialled the number and spoke is my best spanish at length about how I wanted the radio ( yes remember that red word) phone removing and a dedicated line putting in and then I wanted ISDN. There was a silence and the lady from Telefonica said "Si" and promptly hung up.
We continued this game for a few days, the lady from Telefonica and I, but it was clear to me that sooner or later one of us was going to get bored.....yes you guessed I caved in first. It occurred to me that maybe a different approach was needed, after much head scratching I came up with a brainwave......find yourself a friendly spaniard who also speaks English....what a cunning plan...well it would have been had I been able to locate someone with those talents, however I did get a spanish lady who was involved with a German guy, who in turn kinda spoke English.
Hey hey I thought we are on a roll, all I need to do is explain what I need to my german friend who in turn would explain this to his Spanish girlfriend and then she in turn phones Telefonica. The theory was technically good however it seems that in practise, this plan stunk. We are now on Plan 3 subsection 4a and counting.
Ok next in the line of cunning plans is this. I phone telefonica, ask for an english speaker, Bt has operators who speak different languages I know this so it seemed logical that Telefoncia did too. Well this plan half worked I did indeed get a lady who spoke some english, not a lot and mostly in the Janet and John school of reading but at least it was a base form of english. I ordered the ISDN yes she said "10 day", wow I thought we scored here this is not so hard, what I failed to ask was "which 10 days, which month or for that matter which year" I know this sounds crazy but as a tip to those of you out there contemplating a move here, when enquiring about products or services, and they tell you Tuesday, be sure that you remember to ask which month and year. Oh and as an after thought when they say "manana" that does not really mean tomorrow irrespective of what you may have read or been taught. Manana actually means any day after today and there is really no time limit on this.
Anyway I digress, and that is real easy to do here, 10 days came and went and Nada....nothing so I phoned again and asked when they thought this would happen. They did not have any idea of who I was and no record of my order!!
The dialogue with Telefoncia continued for some time, eventuall I did speak to someone at Telefonica who had more that a small grasp of English and not the Janet and John variety.
We spoke at length, which is itself was refreshing, where this very nice lady told me that 1) I could not update the phone as no landlines were available in my area, only radio phones and they had no plans to put in lines in the near future....maybe 4 years maybe more she told me.
At this point I needed to be picked up from the floor and brought round, where was I??? In the amazon?? Then she cheerfully told me that there was no chance at all of ISDN however she continued there is a possibility that you may be able to connect to the internet via the radio phone. I was ok....well kinda ok after a few brandy's.
Not to be defeated I set up my computer and managed to get online having waded through the complicated spanish sign up pages, and YES I connected at 14kbps..................Doh! It was like watching paint dry. After some consideration I decided that there was not enough of my life left to wait for pages on the internet to load at this speed so I decided that more needed to be done to achieve this and I would have to hatch more and more cunning plans.........this is where my training in the University of cunning under Professor Sly came to the fore.
posted by Atila The Nun | 8/24/2005
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