[pigro]

Originally Posted by NickZ

The idiot proof is why I suggested DSL. She clicks a few things on the Alice site. Somebody shows up installs a WI-FI router. She turns on the Mac and hopefully all is well.

What "few things" exactly does she click, as a non-technical foreigner on a foreign site aimed at ordering a semi-technical service with several different options? Do those few things require her to have stuff like a Codice Fiscale and a bank account set up? can she arrange the instal lfor a time of her choice when she's next in Italy?

Originally Posted by NickZ

If she gets a cell phone based service then she'll be her own tech support. Maybe it'll work fine but if it doesn't?

Have you not read any of the posts on here re. people trying to get tech support from TI? And being offline for weeks on end with no help? I'll repeat. You buy the Mac compatible modem from the Three UK shop. You plug it into the Mac. It works. If in any doubt, take your mac laptop down to the Three UK shop and plug it in there when you buy it. In the unlikely event that it doesn't work on the spot, get them to sort it before you walak out the door. If they can't (and you have nobody competent in UK to spend 5 minutes fixing it for you) ... fair enough you have a 3 day no quibble money back guarantee. Just leave it on the desk, get your refund and walk out no worse off than when you walked in.

Originally Posted by NickZ

Worse she'll be buying a UK service and trying to get support in Italy.

You don't understand. She buys it in the UK. She plugs it in. It works. Once she's got that far, there is nothing else to do. It is preset by Three with international roaming enabled. if she's physically able to carry her laptop plus modem onto a plane then when she hits Tre italia coverage, it authenticates straight onto the same network as it was in the UK. The only thing that could fail to work would be reception at her Itlaina location. And I pointed that out several posts ago and linked to a coverage checker, with coverage being a prerequisite to my answer.

Originally Posted by NickZ

She wants to use Skype. So either she needs to communicate with people on the Skype service or does lots of LD calls. To me it looks like she'll save money using the fixed line if she can't get a fast enough connection for Skype.

My answer was intended to cover her question as to whether the Three modem may be a good solution for her transition from UK to Italy. Skype over ANY mobile internet product is only for real geeks as you have to circumvent the network operator who wants to prevent you from doing this, and has all the tools to run packet inspection on the skype traffic and route it down a black hole. You may well be right that once in Italy full time a fixed line would be more economic; for someone who relies on skype certainly the argument is stronger (as long as she's not 10 Km's from her exchange). But I never said otherwise. In fact, I actually said:

If after 6 months you envisage using it only in Italy, AND as your main broadband solution, then I'd say that it would no longer be the best solution (go for a domestic italian product, whether mobile or otherwise)

Meantime, mobile broadband plus a cheapo Itaiian PAYG sim+phone while she's not yet there full time still sounds ideal to me. If you want to debate it further PM me - I think we're at the end of what's useful as advice to a non-technical person here.