Posted: Fri Jul 1, 2022 9:12pm
Hi Pam, as has already been said, there are 2 paths you can follow -
1. Traditional. Get a company to provide a satellite service. They will come and install an external receiving dish of some description, along with a small receiver box for your living room/wherever. They may charge you around €50 as a one-off installation cost, then typical costs are around €30/month. If you're not living here permanently, that is quite an expensive solution, ie €360/year, every year just for TV.
2. Technology is advancing all the time, and nowadays it is possible to get TV services over the Internet. Indeed, many of the traditional satellite-dish services don't offer much more than the equivalent of "Freeview" (which is OK) but if you use the Internet, you can access many of the additional services that you may subscribe to back in the UK. A good example of this is Sky. If you subscribe to a piece of communications software known as a VPN (Virtual Private Network) you can install it on a device of your choice, then if you install SkyGo on the same device, you can access all the programmes included in your Sky package, (I haven't used PureVPN, but I can recommend NordVPN. I've also tried SurfShark but it wasn't able to deliver TV transmission from the UK) . A good VPN will only cost around €3/month if you subscribe for 2 years.
Also, some TV services will run without any VPN at all. A good example of this is Netflix. I access Netflix (UK) using a different mechanism, by "casting" it directly to my TV monitor from my UK mobile phone (via Internet Broadband). To do this, I bought a Chromecast, a small device that plugs into one of the HDMI ports on my TV. The Chromecast device costs around £30. There's more good news if you're not planning to live in Spain full-time. I also have a place in San Pedro. One of the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in San Pedro is Flexa. They offer a service called Internet Para Dias - Internet For Days - whereby you can switch your Internet connection off when you're not out here, so you only pay for the days when you're in Spain.
Having said all of this, if you're a Technophobe, perhaps TV over your broadband connection is not for you. It can be fiddly, and if something fails to connect, you need to have a little understanding of how it's meant to work so that you can get back on track. It's also more fragmented, for example (with a VPN installed) all you need to access BBC I-Player is a Web browser and a BBC user account, whereas Sky has its own dedicated apps (SkyGo and Sky Sports). SkyGo can be more demanding to get it to work over a VPN, and that might put some people off, but if you have a Sky subscription and are prepared to persevere, it offers a lot of UK TV services through a single app.
To sum up, using the Internet to deliver content like UK TV is a lot cheaper than traditional satellite systems, and arguably more versatile. However, the Internet approach requires a number of pieces of hardware and software to achieve a working TV facility. if you are a member of the "IT For The Terrified" community, it may be easier, and less frustrating, just to bite the bullet and go the satellite route.
HTH
My name's Alex and this is my website all about San Pedro del Pinatar in Spain. Register now for free to talk about Broadband Internet, Wifi, Phone and TV in San Pedro del Pinatar and much more!
