If you are visiting Marbella from abroad for a short time on vacation or business and need internet access either with wifi or 3g, rather than paying costly roaming fees with your provider back home, you have other options.

Yes, most hotels will provide either a free wifi or paid wifi, but the paid options can be quite costly and if for example you get free wifi from the hotel, this means if you go out and about and need wifi access, then you are tied to the hotels wifi network. This is not really suitable for most internet dependent people.

Wifi Access in Marbella and Surrounding Areas

There is though an English speaking company in Marbella that provides good, multiple wifi hotspots across most parts of the Costa del Sol. They are called Mercury Internet and they have over the last couple of years put in a serious infrastructure network of wifi hotspots across the coast between Malaga and Estepona.

Click here to see a coverage maps of their wifi hotspot network.

Affordable and Flexible Wifi Hotspots

Packages range from 1 hour, 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month and 3 months. Of course they do have longer term contracts available if you are staying longer but the short term prices are very reasonable. Their speeds are decent for general internet use but most importantly you are not tied to a specific hotspot, you can freely roam the coast using the wifi hotspot.

How about Short Term 3G Contracts and not wifi?

As most readers will know, I was one of the first to get the ipad on the launch day in Spain and had a terrible time even getting the standard 3G contract through Vodafone in Spain. I ended up bastardising one of my spare sim cards into the shape of a micro sim card and activating a totally different non ipad 3g tariff.

So, the result is that I dont even think its possible to get a short term 3G contract during a short term stay in Spain. I believe the minimum term for any 3g contract (ipad and non ipad) is 18 months.

If you are here for a short term, the a paid wifi service like the one Mercury offers is perfect and disposable.