Utilities, Phone & TV in Spain
Utilities (Water, Gas & Electricity)
There are essentially two ways of living in Catalunya that mean very different things as far as utilities are concerned. If you choose to live in the 'campo' (the countryside) you may not have any mains supplies at all but that will be dealt with in more detail in another section that's coming soon. If however you choose to live in a village, town, city or on urbanized land you'll have mains supply to water and electricity both of which are metered through and billed by the supplier. When buying a property that has mains supplies you'll need a cèdula d'habitabilitat (habitation certificate) that can be obtained by filling out a form called a solicitud de cedula d'habitabilitat de novo ocupacio which guarantees certain standards of supply and installation. You can download a form from the Medi Ambient i Habitatge (Department of Environment & housing) website but if you're buying a new build your developer should do all this for you and if it's an existing property the seller should apply for the habitation certificate before selling. Once completed and processed by the Medi Ambient i Habitatge you'll be issued with the habitation certificate which will enable you to be connected to or have the utility bills changed to your name.
Useful sites
Mains Gas - Gas Natural
Electricity & Gas - endesa
Telephone
Although the telecoms market throughout Spain has been deregulated there is essentially still only one port of call to get a telephone line and that's Telefonica, the old state owned monopoly. As with any former nationalised business now faced with competition its advertising promises a little more glamour than it delivers. You will often be waiting months for a phone line to be connected in a urban area and if you're living in the countryside or on an urbanization then this could easily extend to years.
But things are changing slowly and once you have a line there's the opportunity to use dialling prefixes or switch to other service providers which may offer better deals in terms of price, service or add ons such as internet access. There's also rapidly expanding wireless services that are enabling people in some rural areas to have phone and internet access for a similar or lower price than Telefonica.
There are also many mobile phone services that offer either contact or pay as you go options. For contacts you'll need all the relevant identification including your NIE, residencia or passport, Empadronament (Empadronamiento in Spanish) and bank account details. Pay as you go is far more straight forward simply requiring initial phone purchase and then purchasing call time which can be bought on-line, through the mobile phone sales point or in many newsagents and tobacconists.
Useful sites
Internet
There's a broad range of internet service providers (ISP's) within Catalunya and Spain that can either be accessed through your telephone line via dial up or broadband connections. There is also the alternative for those without a telephone line of having mobile access direct to your pc through a GPRS card that mobile phone service providers offer. These generally have slower access and monthly data download limits of about 1GB, though if you are just using them for browsing and sending emails this should be plenty.
Useful sites
TV
If you want to go native and immerse yourself in the language a simple aerial will give you access to all Spanish and Catalan terrestrial TV – see our media page for more information. If you can't do without your weekly soap fix in your own language then a satellite dish is the only answer and there are numerous installation companies available to do this for you.
If you already have satellite TV in your own country it's probably not worth bringing your own dish as you may well need to buy a bigger one anyway, but if you already have a digibox and card they should work perfectly well with an adaptor plug. You can get all UK free view channels through a basic card but if you're after a full sky package or similar multichannel services from other European countries you'll either need a registered address in your country of origin or to make further enquiries with a local installation company.
