Which is the best mobile phone network in Spain?

One of the most important factors these days when it comes to mobile phones is the internet, whether it’s fast enough and has a good connection. Those in rural areas in Spain may also worry about phone coverage.

Whether you use your phone mostly for searching on the internet and e-mailing, watching videos or calling people, you'll want to know which mobile phone network is the best in Spain. 

You may need your phone for your work or simply to stay connected when you're far away from family and it's important that you can rely on both mobile phone coverage and internet connection. 

Internet connection

If you rarely use your mobile phone for calling and are more concerned by internet connection and download speed, then you’ll be interested to find out the companies in Spain that offer the best and fastest connections.

Internet speed platform nPerf carried out a study between January 1st and December 31st 2022 based on results from 193,350 internet connection tests in Spain, using mobile phones with iOS and Android.

The study focused on five of Spain's main companies - Movistar, Vodafone, Orange, Digi and MásMovil/ Yoigo.

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To find the best companies a series of tasks were carried out to analyse connections, download speed, upload speed, web browsing and video streaming on YouTube. The results were then collated and given a final score for each operator.  

The company that came out on top overall that offered the fastest and most reliable internet connection was Movistar with a total of 81,764 points. Movistar was also out in front when it came to download speed with 65 Mb/s. In second place in this category was Orange with 45 Mb/s. 

In terms of request and response times, Movistar again proved to be the best and fastest. DIGI scored the lowest with 54.62 milliseconds followed by MásMovil/Yoigo with 49.91 milliseconds.  

The researchers also decided to analyse the speed of video streaming on YouTube, since it is one of the most popular platforms in Spain. Movistar again took the number one position (84 percent), with DIGI following closely behind (83 percent).

The study also looked at 5G connections, and it was discovered that the largest operators have the best results, with Vodafone, Orange and Movistar (in that order) providing the fastest speeds to their customers.  

Remember though, there are other factors to consider such as price and the coverage in the area you live.

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Mobile phone coverage 

All operators in Spain have coverage in more than 99 percent of the country, so working out which company is the best is not straightforward and will often depend on where you live.  

According to a study by tech website Xataka, Movistar, Vodafone and Orange have the best coverage overall and very similar total spectrum on which the different technologies are deployed, where 2G, 3G and 4G coexist with 5G.  

Yoigo, on the other hand, does not have spectrum in the 800 and 900 MHz bands, which means that it should have worse coverage indoors or in more rural areas, although to avoid this, it has agreements with Orange and Movistar to access their networks when necessary. This means that even if you choose Yoigo, you’re likely to still have good coverage and not notice much of a difference.

Among the cheapest brands, O2 and Vodafone yu are the only companies that stand out as the only alternatives that guarantee the same quality as Movistar, Vodafone and Orange.  

While, in the case of Simyo, the service is not very different from that of Orange since they even use some of the same networks.