In short
- Purely in terms of installation effort per outlet, a new build with conduit is roughly 5–6× cheaper than chiselling into finished walls later. This is the single biggest saving there is.
- Every euro figure here is a German reference value. The actual prices on Mallorca are calculated case by case.
- Solid rubble-stone walls attenuate wifi far more than a brick new build. That means a finca needs more wired access-point locations, not more repeaters.
What "complete" actually means for a finca
A complete network has three parts: the cabling in the walls, the active equipment in the rack and the wireless coverage on top. In a terraced house you can keep the first part small. In a finca with an outbuilding, a pool area and thick walls, you cannot.
The rule of thumb for a single-family home is roughly 15 outlets at 25 metres each, so about 375 metres of cable. That is a rough orientation for a compact house. A finca with detached buildings sits well above it – the distances between the main house, the guest house and the technical room are the reason.
The one figure that decides everything
A complete network outlet – cable, faceplate, patch panel, labour – costs 150 to 350 euros as a German reference value. On its own, that range says little. It only becomes useful once you break it down by installation effort:
| Situation | Effort per outlet (DE reference) |
|---|---|
| New build with conduit | 25–40 € |
| Existing building, trunking along the skirting | 60–110 € |
| Existing building, chiselling and re-plastering a wall chase | 150–250 € |
The gap between the first and the last row is a factor of 5 to 6. The same outlet, the same function – pulled in once during the shell phase and once chiselled into a finished wall. A conduit that barely registers during the shell phase saves many times its cost later.
That is why we push for conduit on every new build, even where nobody needs an outlet today. A pipe is cheap. Opening up a wall in an occupied house is not.
What the equipment in the rack costs
The cabling is one half, the active equipment the other. German reference values again:
| Component | Reference (DE) |
|---|---|
| 19" wall-mount rack, 9 U | 200–600 € |
| 24-port patch panel, Cat6a | 60–140 € |
| PoE switch, 16 ports | 350–480 € |
| PoE switch, 24 ports, managed | 600–900 € |
| Firewall/router | 400–1,300 € |
| UPS, 1,500 VA | 600–1,500 € |
A 24-port PoE+ switch can draw up to 600 watts under load. The technical room therefore needs its own 230-volt line with its own fuse – something to settle with the electrician during planning, not afterwards.
For the scale of a whole project there are real final prices from Germany: 9 outlets for 2,380 euros, a practice with 18 outlets for 6,900 euros, 32 outlets for 9,840 euros. A complete house cabling with rack, switch and router runs 6,000 to 10,000 euros there. For a company with 25 workstations, 12,000 to 22,000 euros one-off is quoted.
These are German orientation values. The actual prices on Mallorca we calculate case by case – only once we have seen the property.
Why a finca needs more access points than a new build
An outdoor access point from Ubiquiti reaches up to 183 metres in open field with no walls (UAP-AC-M) or 122 metres (UAP-AC-HD). Plan by that number and you plan wrong – because indoors there are walls in the way.
And the walls of a finca attenuate heavily:
- 24 cm brick wall: 15–20 dB
- Reinforced concrete ceiling: 20–30 dB
- Rubble-stone wall: 35–45 dB
10 dB means the signal strength is halved. A solid rubble-stone wall is thus the strongest attenuator in the house. Traditional fincas are built exactly that way – solid natural stone or marès masonry. In our experience wifi barely gets through walls like these; there is no measured dB value specifically for marès stone, so this is field experience, not a measurement.
The answer is not repeaters but locations: you need more access points, and each of them belongs on a cable. Wifi does not replace the cabling – it sits at the end of it. Turn that around and you get dead spots in the guest house.
Where you may save – and where you must not
You may save on the cable itself. Cat6a costs 1.00 to 1.40 euros per metre and carries today's demands without trouble. Even so, on a new build we prefer to lay Cat7. The surcharge is 30 to 80 cents per metre – set against what pulling and chiselling cost, that barely registers. And the cable then sits out of reach in the wall for years, where nobody can get at it once it is plastered over. For the extra headroom over that time, the few cents per metre are money well spent.
Do not save in three places:
- On the conduit. See above. The factor of 5 to 6 comes back later.
- On protecting the rack. The rural power grid is not stable. In mid-June 2026 there were repeated outages in northern and western Mallorca as well as in Palma and the south. Given that, a UPS with surge protection is not an add-on. How often it actually happens at finca level is not statistically documented – one outage in the wrong place is enough.
- On the number of access points. One AP too few means a dead spot, and in our experience the dead spot sits exactly where you least expect it.
The Spanish framework and the internet question
The legal framework on Mallorca is Spanish, not German: what applies is the ICT regulation (RD 346/2011), plus RITU, the electrical regulation REBT and – for cameras – the data protection authority AEPD. According to the sources available, the ICT project obligation does not apply to a detached single-family property; it only kicks in for buildings with several independent units, with certification from 20 units. For a finca with a guest house as a separate dwelling, the classification can flip. This is not legal advice – in the individual case the question belongs with a Spanish telecommunications engineer.
Then there is the connection itself. Spain has over 90 percent fibre coverage, but in many rural parts of Mallorca fibre is simply not available. A common rural alternative is WiMAX via ConectaBalear: a small external antenna, no phone line needed, tariff tiers from 10 to 70 Mbit/s, a static IP for 10 euros a month. The provider only names the actual monthly prices after a coverage check. The biggest mistake is planning the network before it is clear what actually reaches the property.
Settled before the first invoice
- Is conduit planned – including where no outlet sits today?
- Is it established which internet connection is available at the property (fibre, WiMAX, satellite, LTE)?
- Does the technical room have its own 230 V line with its own fuse?
- Are a UPS and surge protection planned for the rack?
- Is the number of access points planned by wall attenuation, not by open-field range?
- Are all fixed AP locations wired?
- With a guest house as a separate unit, has the ICT question been checked legally?
What the difference in price stands for
We are not the cheapest, and we do not play that down. The difference stands for planning that starts with the shell, not with the first outlet, and for a single German-speaking point of contact who, three years from now, still knows why each cable runs where. Anyone looking for bare cabling at the lowest price per metre will find it – with someone else. Anyone who wants the whole thing to still hold up in ten years knows, after this article, what to expect.
Sources
- stahlbergen.de – "Netzwerkverkabelung Kosten" and "WLAN-Reichweite durch Wände", accessed 03/08/2026
- hagel-it.de – "Netzwerk aufbauen: Kosten", accessed 03/08/2026
- coolblue.de – "UniFi Access Point auswählen", accessed 03/08/2026
- wlan-blog.com – attenuation table, accessed 03/08/2026
- mallorca.com – "Internet Mallorca", accessed 03/08/2026
- mallorcadiario.com – power outages on Mallorca, 16/06/2026
- BOE – RD 346/2011 (Reglamento ICT)
- ConectaBalear – WiMAX tariffs, accessed 03/08/2026
Related reading
German-speaking IT service for fincas, villas and businesses on Mallorca. Networks, Wi-Fi, security technology and smart home — planned, installed and maintained.