SPAIN is the second-most expensive country in the European Union for broadband internet, beaten only by Croatia, according to a study by the EU Commission.
The cheapest monthly offer for a connection with a speed of between 12 and 30MBps (megabytes per second) comes in at 2.7% of a person's gross income – way above the EU average of 1.18%, according to the report.
The cheapest connections in the EU are found in Sweden, Germany, Finland and Austria, in that order.
An annual study known as the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) measures advances in digital technology in the EU-28 and examines five areas – connectivity, human capital, internet use, integration of technology, and online public services.
When taking all five into account, Spain is 14th out of the 28, up from number 15 last year, and joins nine other countries which fall somewhere around the middle – Austria, Germany, Malta, Lithuania, Portugal, France, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Latvia.
Despite being the second-most expensive, Spain scores points for being among the most 'online' countries in the EU: use of modern technology by companies, and the provision of public services by internet, is above the European average.
And Spain has improved in all areas since last year, with the exception of human capital.
Across the board, taking all five aspects into account, Denmark is a clear winner, followed closely by Finland, Sweden, The Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium.
It perhaps comes as no surprise that Scandinavia – with the exception of Norway and Iceland, which are not EU members – and the Benelux countries score highly, although outside of these regions, the UK has the best results, being seventh from top, slightly above Ireland.
Portugal is still above the EU average, but below Spain.
In descending order, below-average countries are France, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Slovakia, Hungary, Cyprus, Poland, Croatia, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania at the bottom.
Luckily, concerning the cost of broadband in Spain, the last five or 10 years have seen an upsurge in competition – once, one or at most two network providers held almost 100% of the market share, but this near-monopoly is now a thing of the past with companies constantly vying to be the best and an ever-increasing number to choose from.
Complete packages, where a customer has broadband, landline, mobile phone and other features such as TV channels or portable wireless internet, can bring the cost of each individual service down considerably and include other perks – for example, free calls or text messages to national numbers or on the same network.
Services are also improving: download limits, where these exist, are now likely to be double those of five years ago or even more, and a conscious effort is being made by many regional governments to roll out fibre-optic internet to as many towns as possible.
