Before you look at specific deals I would wait to see if you have decent coverage where you live here in Italy. It's not a given that all networks are equally good anywhere in the country.   If you don't have a regular place to stay then you might need to chop and change.  If you get an 'open' key then you can switch providers as often as you like.

Hi Tartuffa,

I already have a mobile phone with vodafone which gets a very good signal in our apartment as do other providers such as tim and wind. some examples of currently available deals for 'open' keys would be very helpful...

thanks

This previous post may be useful -

http://www.italymag.co.uk/community/post/pay-you-go-interent

We used the TIM deal mentioned over the summer without any issues.

Thanks for reply Andiamo,

i can't find a specific link to a tim offer on that page - could you provide one please? my limited italian makes it very difficult to look through search pages and terms and conditions etc...

An open key is exactly that - you choose the provider according to the best deal available when you need it.  You'd need to go to an independent phone store though.

http://www.tim.it/consumer/c56088/i56299/livello2standard.do

thanks Andiamo,

i'll take a close look at them.

Not wanting to confuse the issue, but... I have had good experiences using a mobile wifi device (known to the boffins as mi-fi). It's basically a portable router which gives you a wi-fi standard connection wherever you are.

The key difference compared to a chiavetta is that up to five devices can access the web at the same time. So you can be in one room on a smartphone while the children/partner are on the laptop in another.

At Easter we rented one from tepwireless.com. They post it out to you before your trip, you post it back on your return. Had it in my pocket wandering round Rome - with wi-fi access to Google Maps  on my iPhone.

You can pay either for 100mb/day cumulative (ie unused data gets rolled onto the next days) or opt for unlimited which costs more.

Two good things about this are 1) They are offering 30% off for summer bookings made before May 15 and 2) ifyou enter "tep 40" in the discount box you get another 40% off on top.

It's another option if you didn't want to get into buying/recharging ItalianSIMs yourself.

I think I may end up buying an unlocked mifi unit like the Huawei 586 then sticking an Italian data sim into it.

Anyone else used Mifi in Europe/Italy?

Mike