9297 Internet access

Hello,
Your right they all provide access in this area, but its difficult to say which is the best as it depends where you live. For example we live quite low in a valley and we don't get much of a signal from any of the phone companies. I do believe a friend of mine uses a system like what your saying and brought himself a small Aerial that extends his signal in bad reception areas. It attaches to his laptop. That might help you.

Hi
We recently managed to organize internet access through a wireless system. If you PM me i will give you their details and hopefully they will be in a position to connect you up.

If you like i will pop in and ask them if they can provide service in the Amandola area - is that where you are?

Kind regards:yes:

Hi I've just signed up with 3 internet mobile, you get a 'thing' that you plug into your usb port it works in most of the uk and has extensive cover in Italy, if you sign up for 12 months the 'thing' is free and you pay £15 per month internet is broadband and you can use it for about 4hours surfing a day. for overseas use you have to pay a refundable £150 for international dialing but this will be refunded to you after a year, its worth calling into a 3 shop to enquire. Also TIM do something simlar in Italy
hope that helps ciao chris

[quote=Chris Newton;87441]Hi I've just signed up with 3 internet mobile, you get a 'thing' that you plug into your usb port it works in most of the uk and has extensive cover in Italy[/quote]
It's been some months since I looked into the mobile internet services available in Italy, so I can't really comment on those. However, I happened to catch [URL="http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and_radio/watchdog/reports/services/services_20080331.shtml"]an item on BBC's Watchdog[/URL] a couple of weeks back talking about the astonishing bills people have received after using their UK mobile phone for internet access while on the Continent.

By "astonishing", I mean nearly £10,000 for an evening spent downloading a computer game update.

For all I know, the cases cited were idiots who just never bothered to read the rules of their contract as they applied to "data roaming" internet access and ignored warnings about the charges they were racking up, but it sounded to me like the mobile phone companies do make absurdly high (and totally unjustifiable) charges for each megabyte of data transferred via mobile connection.

If you set up a contract in the UK for mobile internet access intending to use it while you're in Italy, I'd be very careful that you're [B][I]totally[/I][/B] clear about just how much you'll be charged for that service.

Al

Thanks for the replies.

I want to get a "pay as you go" sim card which I will but when I get to Italy. I understand you can get a sim card that last a month that gets you internet access for about 25 euros.

The house is quite high ( about 650m) and not in a valley. I don't want to spend 25euros on a sim card only to find out that the reception for Vodaphone, Tim or 3 in Amandola is poor. I think there may be a place in Amandola where I can buy a Tim sim card so if reception is good with Tim then that would be my preferred option.

Adrian

It's not clear from your posts if you've had a look at [URL="http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/cost-living-utility-services/6435-gprs-edge-ii-time-s-summary.html"]this earlier thread[/URL] on internet access via mobile phone. As you'll see, that one is Tuscanhills' attempt to present information in a useful form after an even earlier thread meandered on about the topic for about 120 pages (or so it seemed at the time).

Tuscanhills gives a link to a site which shows TIM coverage, but that link appears to be broken and I wasn't able to spot the current coverage map on the TIM site.

My recollection is that TIM does have the most extensive coverage in Italy, so it's probably a good bet for you. Before we got sort-of-ADSL at our house, I was using the TIM mobile network for internet access on a PAYG basis. It did cost something in the region of €25 per month and the service was not too bad, but there were a couple of nuisances associated:

First, I had to SMS a sign-up message to TIM every month since the company was offering the deal on a month-to-month basis rather than something one could sign up to permanently.

Second, I had to keep track of both exactly when I had last signed up for month and also a very close watch on my data transmission use since the package was on the basis of "1 month or [I]x[/I] Mb of data transmitted and received". If I used the internet one second into a "new" month or exceeded the data limit by one byte, charges immediately went to a very high per-Kb level. What's more, TIM (as a service to customers, of course) allowed the account to go €15 into debit, so if my internet connection died due to going over time or data limits, getting it back meant buying not just a €25 recharge card, but €50 since the amount I needed to get back to €25 in credit was always just a couple of cents more than €40. :madd:

Hopefully, all this will have changed over the last year or so and it will be a lot less hassle for you.

Al

[quote=AllanMason;87461]

My recollection is that TIM does have the most extensive coverage in Italy, so it's probably a good bet for you. Before we got sort-of-ADSL at our house, I was using the TIM mobile network for internet access on a PAYG basis. It did cost something in the region of €25 per month and the service was not too bad, but there were a couple of nuisances associated:

First, I had to SMS a sign-up message to TIM every month since the company was offering the deal on a month-to-month basis rather than something one could sign up to permanently.
[/quote]

I use the TIM off peak 25 Euro deal. There is an ongoing billed version but IIRC it's a worse deal then the deal I have but I haven't checked lately.

How well it works depends on the TIM service in your area. If you have a TIM phone with HSPDA it's pretty easy to flip open the phone and check what sort of signal you get. I don't really trust the maps. My cousins house is "covered" by TIM but it's next to useless for voice and very slow for data. That's why everybody in that town is on Vodafone. OTOH here everybody is on TIM. So you could ask the locals what works.

Instead of sending a SMS you can just phone 4916 and punch a few buttons. It'll tell you when the 30 days is up. How much of your 9gig data transfer you've used. Punch a couple of different numbers and you can sign up for the next 30 days. If you're Italian isn't that strong push a few different keys and switch the 4916 service to English.

The part that bothers me is you need to wait until it expires to sign up again. For example I think my current 30 days is up May 10th. I have to wait until May 11th to sign up again.

I did read the very interesting thread started by Tuscanhills. I did not know I could buy a data sim card and use my mobile and laptop to get internet access until I read the thread.

You don't need a special SIM. I just plug my phone into the computer. Hit dial and away I go.

If you buy one of the data cards or USB modems from TIM then the card comes with a SIM. I guess it's got a phone number to but if you have a voice phone from TIM [I assume the other guys to] then you just need to set up the account. Of course your phone must support data transfers.

[quote=Adrian Brown;87509]I did read the very interesting thread started by Tuscanhills. I did not know I could buy a data sim card and use my mobile and laptop to get internet access until I read the thread.[/quote]

I started the original thread which at the time had a member called Aliena, whose response to the thread was "What the hell is this thread about, it's going nowhere".

I got hounded off Living in Italy forums at that time, however sufficient time has passed now, and I have returned.

[quote=AllanMason;87443]However, I happened to catch [URL="http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and_radio/watchdog/reports/services/services_20080331.shtml"]an item on BBC's Watchdog[/URL] a couple of weeks back talking about the astonishing bills people have received after using their UK mobile phone for internet access while on the Continent.

By "astonishing", I mean nearly £10,000 for an evening spent downloading a computer game update.
[/quote]

In reading the small print on the T-Mobile site for Mobile Broadband Roaming I have come across charges of £1.50 per MB for use within the EU and £7.50 per MB for use in other countries. If I have interpreted their information correctly, a download of 1.3GB, the equivalent of just two CDs, would probably take 3 or 4 hours at the speeds they quote and, outside the EU, would indeed cost £10,000! Broadband Roaming might have some purpose limited to email access if visiting a number of countries but do beware any more general use.