direct-telecom

Two months ago we happily announced that the days are numbered for Telefonica’s monopoly in Spain.

But it seems that Telefónica will stop at nothing to try and desperately hang on to its clients – not even outright deceit. So we want to make sure that you are all aware of the latest trick to watch out for, because it’s a big one!

Telefónica are sending letters out to their landline subscribers, asking them to fill out and return an attached form. (Click on the images below to see samples of the letter and form).

The first time you read the actual letter in Spanish, it sounds like Telefónica are asking for your written consent to allow other operators (like Direct Telecom) to handle your call traffic. But read it a few more times and especially look at the small print on the form and it’s a whole other story!

What Telefónica actually want is your consent for them to cancel any preselection or low-cost call routing to other operators, so they can make all your calls go through their own system. But this intention is cleverly disguised until you get to the following text in the form that you have to sign:

“Solicito que procedan a inhabilitar total o parcialmente la preasignación del/de los numero/s arriba relacionado/s, para realizar, por defecto, estas llamadas con Telefónica de España S.A.U.”

Which translates to:

“I request that you proceed to totally or partially disable the preselection facility on the number(s) above, to route all calls through Telefónica de Espana S.A.U. by default.”

It is very possible that these forms, once signed, will actually be further used by Telefónica to prevent or hinder their clients from being able to sign up with competing Low Cost Call companies at all! If you have ever faced the incredible red tape and delaying tactics you get when you try and cancel your Internet subscription with Telefónica, you’ll know that we are not exaggerating about this.

On a similar note, we have had five complaints over the last few days about Telefónica technicians turning up at clients’ homes out of the blue, saying they have to make some changes to the line. Once the changes are done, the client is told that they now have a new phone number. This seems to be a way of prolonging the client’s contract with Telefónica so they will not be able to switch over to another telephone operator when the time comes.

If this has happened to you, call Telefonica’s 1004 helpline and say that you want your old number back or you will go to the police. We are told that this has been successful in getting the operation reversed.

We believe that Telefónica are getting ready for the big hit they are going to take towards the end of this year, when companies such as Direct Telecom will be able to take over the line rental from them, and are doing whatever they can to try and prevent this. As they are about to lose the battle to retain their monopoly, Telefónica are resorting to fighting dirtier than ever. But forewarned is fore-armed, so please let your friends and family know about these tricks so they do not fall for the scams.

Exciting news on the horizon for current and future Direct Telecom clients!

Years of perseverance have now paid off and we will very soon be in a position to offer you the possibility to completely migrate your Spanish fixed telephone line and related services to Direct Telecom. This means that you will finally have a choice and a say about which telecommunications company you want to choose something long overdue, as anyone living in Spain will surely agree.

All you will have to do is authorise us to make the switch and Direct Telecom will take charge of your phone line so that you won’t have to deal with Telefonica again or receive any more bills from them. In fact, we will be able to provide you with everything you need as regards fixed telephony, ADSL and mobile services , with everything combined into a single bill to make it easier for you to keep track.

So, when exactly will you be able to say goodbye to Telefonica and switch over completely to Direct Telecom? That must be the obvious question on your mind and the answer is hopefully around September 2008! Our new clients can already check the appropriate box in the sign-up agreement if they want their phone line to be automatically transferred when the time comes. We know that many of you can’t wait, but, of course, this does not depend entirely on us.

As many of you already know, we have been fighting for a very long time to break Telefonica’s monopoly on fixed phone lines in Spain, in order to offer our clients and the Spanish public at large a competitive and viable alternative. The situation that has prevailed so far is totally unacceptable, especially in a modern European country and has proven to be highly detrimental to the consumer in more ways than one. At long last, things are about to change!

If you thought the price of technology is getting cheaper all the time as new stuff becomes more popular, think again! At least as far as Telefonica’s Movistar is concerned that’s not the case at all.

From next month, the increasingly common practise of sending Multimedia Messages (MMS), consisting of photos or video, from Movistar’s mobile network is about to become a real and true luxury for consumers.

Roll up! Roll up! Movistar MMS messages now only 1 Euro each (+VAT)

As El País reports, the number of MMS messages sent in Spain has doubled last year to 279 million, compared to 143 million messages in 2005. Common economic sense would predict that the more popular a technology becomes, the cheaper it gets. But in a blatant display of corporate greed, Telefonica Movistar has just announced that from 1^st March 2008 they are raising their prices for sending MMS messages in Spain to a whopping 1€ + VAT!

Movistar’s increased MMS price will apply regardless of destination network

Movistar said it will apply this new price equally to MMS messages sent to all networks, making it three and a half times the current Movistar-Movistar MMS price of 28 cents, and almost double the cost of sending an MMS to another operator - currently 55cents.

Needless to say, consumers won’t be happy at all about this very hefty price indeed for what amounts to a paltry few kilobytes of data zipping through a mobile phone network!

And in other news…

Direct Telecom promises amazing rates with the coming launch of BT Mobile in Spain!

It’s not all bleak news for mobile phone users! Direct Telecom is happy to announce that we are one of the very few distributors chosen by British Telecom to launch the BT Mobile service in Spain in the very near future. Soon, you will be able to enjoy a reliable mobile phone service at amazingly competitive rates!

“About time!” you say? Well, keep your eyes peeled for more information available soon on this blog and on the Direct Telecom website!

At Direct Telecom, we hear shocking stories from our clients on a day to day basis with which we could no doubt write a book about frustration and utter dissapointment.  People have either lost their phone number, simply got disconnected without prior notice, have been overcharged, or suddenly got themselves signed up for a service they never even asked for!

We feel this space could be usefull to share stories and experiences with Telefónica (or any other provider) so that we can hopefully help eachother and not fall into the same trap. We therefore invite you to post your comments that will with no doubt be extremely helpful and very much appreciated.

Remember that if you are unsure when dealing with Telefónica, please do call us and we will be delighted to help.

the Direct Telecom Team.

Up until now, if you lived in a rural part of Spain and wanted to enjoy a good, fast ADSL broadband internet connection from your home, you were out of luck! You either accepted Telefonica’s offer of 512Kbps ADSL for the price of their faster ADSL connections, or nothing! And worst of all, you had no way of getting free calls to all fixed lines in Spain like you can in town.

Now, despite the fact that Telefonica has been fighting tooth and nail to retain the monopoly on its rural ADSL infrastructure in Spain and block out all other Spanish telecommunications operators, Direct Telecom has finally gained access!

We are very happy to finally be able to offer you a choice of top quality ADSL broadband connections to your country home in Spain at speeds of up to 4 Megabits per second! And free national telephone calls to fixed lines too!

What is the difference between an ordinary ADSL and a Rural ADSL?
Hundreds of clients have contacted us to contract our ordinary ADSL service, but were dissapointed to find that their Telefónica landline was classed as “Rural ADSL Zone” when we check for ADSL network coverage.  Until now, the ADSL connection could only be ordered with Telefónica until now.
In principle there is not much difference other than the backbone technology used to provide you with ADSL access, but it is still necessary to have a Telefónica landline in order to be able to contract the Rural ADSL service with Direct Telecom.

How do I know if I am in the “Rural ADSL” area or not?
Contact us on 902 107 111, and we can tell you as we can check this in our systems.
If you do not have a Telefónica landline and require Internet access, check to see if you are in our wireless area.
Take a look at our price list and see for yourself how Direct Telecom always offers you the best choice of services to suit all needs and budgets:

We are also introducing a special flat rate Internet service called Direct Dial-Up 24/7 for those rural areas still not covered by the broadband ADSL infrastructure. This will cost just 19.50€ / month.

We would also like to remind you of our lightning fast 4 Megabit and 8 Megabit ADSL Internet connection services specially tailored for businesses in urban areas. These cost 89.90€ and 119€ a month respectively.

These services are just another example of how, at Direct Telecom, we are constantly trying to offer all our customers a wider choice and value for money. No matter who you are or where you live!

Contact us now for more information!

Disgruntled Telefonica customers and consumers at large have been crying out for years for companies like Direct Telecom to give them alternative telecommunications products at more competitive prices. Telefonica, on the other hand used its dominant position in the market to make sure that will not happen – especially in the case of ADSL – deliberately inhibiting the growth of its EU competitors and even forcing them to operate at a loss in attempt to match the telecoms giant’s ‘bulk’ prices.

Consumers have long been unhappy with Telefonica and its devious and manipulative ways that guaranteed it a virtual monopoly of the telephone and ADSL markets in Spain. It hardly comes as a surprise to anyone that Spanish consumers pay 20% more for ADSL Internet access than the average in the EU-15 group of countries, while ADSL penetration index is 20% lower and growth a whopping 30% lower. This means that Telefonica is sitting pretty raking in the cash by charging its current customers more, while not bothering to extend its services to areas without ADSL coverage and – to add insult to injury – preventing its competitors like Direct Telecom from filling in these gaps in the market.

Spanish consumers are not just very unhappy indeed. They’re furious! But now their plight against Telefonica has finally been vindicated by the EU, with the  European Commission slamming a 151.8 million Euro fine on Telefonica for its “very serious” and long-lasting abuse of its dominant market position. This massive fine is the second largest ever imposed by the European Commission, surpassed only by Microsoft’s 2004 EU fine – until now, sanctions had only been imposed on resellers of Telefonica’s products, Wanadoo and Deutsche Telecom, the company behind Ya.com.

Finally, a light has appeared at the end of the long dark tunnel of Spain’s telecommunications monopoly. At Direct Telecom, we look forward to the day when Telefonica will be forced to recognise and accept fair competition from other EU telecoms companies. This will hopefully spell the end of the artificially inflated prices that Telefonica is forcing upon begrudging Spanish consumers and will also make things easier for the many people who would rather not have anything to do with Telefonica in the first place.

Until this happens, we, at Direct Telecom will remain at the forefront of this battle, together with the majority of Spanish consumers, exerting pressure on the EU and Spanish authorities who have the power to bring about the much needed reform of Spain’s telecoms market.

Those of us foreigners living in Spain are undoubtedly the envy of friends and family back home. But the joys of sun and sangria can be easily overshadowed by something as mundane as applying for a plain old telephone line with Telefonica. Unfortunately, tales abound of difficulties, frustration and a lot of wasted time – all just to be able to pick up the phone and call our loved ones!

At Direct Telecom, we are tired of hearing complaints about phone-line application woes with Telefonica, and we have decided to do something about it. We have decided to step right in and make your life easier by taking charge of your application for your Spanish telephone line with Telefonica.

That’s right! If you are a prospective customer who intends to use any of our services, (such as Low-Cost Calls in Spain, VoIP Internet Telephony in Spain or ADSL Broadband Internet in Spain) we will handle your phone-line applications and the paperwork involved for you. All you have to do is contact us and we’ll take care of the rest.

And it’s not just about helping you bridge the language barrier or simply to save you the trouble of doing it yourself!

With years of experience in the field of Spanish communications, and with our knowledge of the ins and outs of the system, we will see that you avoid the potential pitfalls that have plagued countless other applicants before you. In other words, we will make sure your Spanish phone line application with Telefonica goes smoothly and is not unduly delayed.

So, if you are about to apply for a new telephone line in Spain, take heart! With Direct Telecom, your worries are over. And what’s more, once you are using our Low-Cost Call services or VoIP Internet Telephony services, you will stand to happily save lots of money on your phone bill each month!

Have you ever looked at your telephone bill from Telefonica and wondered if they had made a big mistake? ‘How can it be so high?’ you think. Then you call them or do the math yourself only to find out that not only is the bill ludicrously high, but absolutely correct too. Sad indeed!

So, exactly how much are you being overcharged each month on your phone calls and Internet?  At Direct Telecom, we can tell you to the cent!

Just show us a recent Telefonica bill and we will work out how much you would have saved if you had made those very same calls and/or accessed the Internet through Direct Telecom’s services. All you have to do is post us a photocopy of your latest Telefonica bill together with your contact details to

Direct Telecom
Edificio Eden Nº 101,
Los Cristianos, 38650
Tenerife, Spain

or fax it to us on 922 797 511 (or even bring it over to our offices). We’ll take care of the rest. And what’s more, we’ll also check your bill for any unnecessary services you may be paying for but not using – an all too common occurrence! This ‘Are you being overcharged?’ service is FREE and using it places you under no obligation to sign up with us.

However, prepare to be pleasantly surprised when you find out how much money you could be saving each month on your phone and Internet services with Direct Telecom. Maybe it’s the cost of a nice evening at the cinema… or a meal for two at your favourite restaurant… What if it’s more?

Once you have exact savings figures based on your own Telefonica bill, making the switch to Direct Telecom won’t be just a no-brainer. It will also be the smartest thing you could do!

As usual, news from Telefónica never seems to be as favourable for the consumer as we would like it to be.  Early on in January, the Telecom’s giant announced that their general rates will be increased by 3.7% and will affect over 11 million users all over the country.  This raise will increase the cost of the monthly line rental fee for all owners of a Telefónica landline by 2% increase, and all national call rates will be increased by 3.7%. It seems only clients with certain contract conditions and additional calling plans may be unaffected, but I wonder what the chances are in qualifying!
It is now a better time than ever to join Direct Telecom.  Before the increase in rates, our clients were already saving over 80% in comparison with Telefónicas rates.  Our rates remain unaffected so imagine how much more you can save now!

According to Telefónica, they can justify the increase in rates because the CMT (Comisión del Mercado de las Telecomunicaciones) has recently forced them to drastically drop the prices of the ADSL services that are sold on to the ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) in Spain.  Telefónica claims that this is a way of making up for the money they will loose by dropping the ADSL reseller prices. 

Direct Telecom’s ADSL service has proved to be a total success. Our aim is to provide quality communication services to our clients at a reduced price and this is why we are keeping a close eye on the evolution of this expected drop in ADSL prices to make sure that our clients will be the first to see the benefits.