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Danish internet providers lied about broadband speeds

The Consumer Ombudsman (Forbrugerombudsmanden) said on Wednesday that Danish internet providers have mislead customers by promising broadband speeds that they can’t deliver.

Danish internet providers lied about broadband speeds
Photo: Colourbox
The ombudsman has told TDC, Telia and Telenor that they need to change the way they market their broadband services after the companies over-promised what they can provide. 
 
“TDC, Telia and Telenor have misled consumers by promising them broadband speeds that they can’t have. I have therefore asked the companies to change their marketing,” Consumer Ombudsman Christina Toftegaard Nielsen said in a press release. 
 
“Speed is a major factor for consumers when they choose broadband [providers]. Therefore it is important that the companies give correct information about it in their marketing,” she added. 
 
The ombudsman looked at five cases, two each from TDC and Telia and one from Telenor and concluded that the companies advertised broadband speeds that aren’t available or withheld important details from consumers.
 
In one instance, TDC promised a speed guarantee but did not specify that it applied only to consumers who use a DSL cable and not those who use wireless connections. 
 
In another, Telia advertised for a TV package that included 20MB broadband speeds without telling consumers that the speeds would be slowed down when used in conjunction with the TV package. 
 
Telia and Telenor were also both criticised for advertising broadband internet of “up to” a certain speed without specifying that many customers would be unable to use the advertised maximum speeds and that the top speeds were impossible to reach if consumers used the wireless routers that came with the deal. 

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INTERNET

EU greenlights €200M for Spain to bring super fast internet speeds to rural areas

Brussels has approved a plan which will bring high-speed broadband internet to the almost 1 in 10 people in Spain who live in underpopulated rural areas with poor connections, a way of also encouraging remote workers to move to dying villages. 

EU greenlights €200M for Spain to bring super fast internet speeds to rural areas
The medieval village of Banduxo in Asturias. Photo: Guillermo Alvarez/Pixabay

The European Commission has given Spain the green light to use €200 million of the funds allocated to the country through the Next Generation recovery plan to offer internet speeds of up to 300 Mbps (scalable to 1Gb per second) to rural areas with slow internet connections. 

According to Brussels, this measure will help guarantee download speeds of more than 100 Mbps for 100 percent of the Spanish population in 2025.

Around 8 percent of Spain’s population live in areas where speeds above 100Mbs are not available, mostly in the 6,800 countryside villages in Spain that have fewer than 5,000 inhabitants.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen plans to travel to Madrid on Wednesday June 16th to hand over to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez the approved reform plan for Spain. 

Back in April, Spain outlined its Recovery and Resilience plan aimed at revitalising and modernising the Spanish economy following the coronavirus crisis, with €72 billion in EU grants over the next two years.

This includes green investments in energy transition and housing, boosting science and technology education and digital projects such as the fast-speed internet project which aims to avoid depopulation in rural areas. 

It’s worth noting that these plans set out €4.3 billion for broadband internet and 5G mobile network projects in rural areas in Spain, so this initial investment should be the first of many.

Over the past 50 years, Spain’s countryside has lost 28 percent of its population as Spaniards left to find jobs in the big cities. 

The gap has been widening ever since, local services and connections with the developed cities have worsened, and there are thousands of villages which have either been completely abandoned or are at risk of dying out. 

READ MORE:

How Spaniards are helping to save the country’s 4,200 villages at risk of extinction

rural depopulation spain

The pandemic has seen a considerable number of city dwellers in Spain move or consider a move to the countryside to gain space, peace and quiet and enjoy a less stressful life, especially as the advent of remote working in Spain can allow for this. 

Addressing the issue of poor internet connections is one of the best incentives for digital workers to move to the countryside, bringing with them their families, more business and a new lease of life for Spain’s villages.

READ ALSO:

Nine things you should know before moving to rural Spain

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