Getting on-line
There are a number of ISPs (Internet Service Providers) here but getting connected is not as easy as in the UK where you can stroll into any supermarket and pick up a disk that will have you going in minutes.
First Dial-up.
Telefonica are the easiest to get a disk for if you want to get yourself going, just call in your nearest Telefonica shop, remember it will only be in Spanish. The more popular choice for a dial-up connection out here is Gonuts4free, this is because they are the only one who will give you support in English at your first 'phone call. You can download a setup disk from Gonuts4free or you can contact one of the many PC engineers who are plying their trade up and down the coast. If you take the, call a technician option then make sure you get a firm price before you tell him to come to you. Sadly there are a few bad apples who will try to take advantage of your lack of knowledge and experience. You should not pay more than €30 for this service.
Now ADSL (Broadband)
Yes your broadband has a different name here, don't expect a Spaniard to know what you mean by broadband they won't. Even worse they don't say Ay-Dee-Es-Ell it's ah-duh-es-ell. Telefonica will charge you up to €100 to send an engineer to do the installation for you and the others will insist you do the installation yourself. Whoever you go with, your local PC engineer will be able to do the installation for you and should charge no more than €30. Don't get suckered by the offers of very wide bandwidth at very low prices all these people have on their websites. Unless you live in one of the largest cities (Madrid, Valencia, etc) then those deals will not be available to you.
BT ADSL in Spain is the Arakis service and is nothing like the broadband they provide in UK.
Jazztel is a long established supplier with good pricing.
Europa has been around for a while but has a poor reputation for service and reliability.
Roundtown News network is really Europa in disguise. The cheap offer of ADSL they offer, like the Europa offering is dependent on you making a large number of 'phone calls each month.
OLE was the Torresat ADSL service. It was very poor as Torresat but seems to have improved a lot recently and does have the best pricing.
Ya is another established supplier but only offers support in Spanish and you need a natural spanish speaker to activate the service as it is done over a voice recognition service.
If you have elected to live in the back of beyond then it is quite possible that either there are no phone lines or if there are then there is no ADSL. In this case Vodafone, Orange and many others do offer internet connection via a USB dongle that gives a reasonable connection speed for around €40/month. The Vodaphone device requires you to call during installation to obtain a PUK (Pin Unlock Code) so you need a spanish speaker with you for a few minutes. Orange have a similar service but the coverage is not so good and you can end up with connection speeds slower than dial-up. Telefonica also now sell a USB dongle to provide mobile access but only on contract. Here is a Vodafone coverage map.
Don't be surprised if your email address stops working when you connect from Spain. Most providers in the UK will not allow you to send emails if you are not connected through their servers. So your @tesco.com, @freeserve, etc addresses will be no use to you. Before you move the best thing to do is get a web based email service such as Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo, personally I like Gmail best it gives you far more of everything than the others.
ISPs Click the name for the website.
Telefonica Ya Gonuts Orange Europa Jazztel Gmail Hotmail Yahoo Vodafone