I've posted info on this across several other threads in the past, but I suspect many who could benefit from it would never have stumbled upon it there.
If you are a holiday home owner looking for an internet connection in Italy for use during your visits there, but those visits won't be frequent enough to justify the cost of a fixed phone line or a line of sight wi-max type solution, the following may help.
Three UK now offer mobile broadband on a PAYG (pay as you go) tarrif. This offers
- up to 2.6Mbps in "turbo" areas or 384kbps otherwise
- data bundles of 1/3/7 GB @ £10/15/25 respectively
- each data bundle lasts for 30 days
- you can simply "top up" again if you use up the allowance within the 30 days
- bundled data may be used in both UK and Italy with no additional charges as long as you stay on the Three 3G network
- the USB modem required to get connected can be bought from Three for £50
- setup is totally painless - plug it in and it self installs under XP/Vista
- there is now also a mac compatible USB stick (and it will work under linux too if you're that adventurous)
so, basically for a total outlay of £60 (card + 1GB data) you can plug the gadget into your laptop, test connectivity in the UK to verify it's all set up and working correctly (and deal with 3 UK in english if it isn't), and then just take the lappy to Italy, turn it on and (in a Tre italia coverage zone) and enjoy one month of broadband surfing with no other charges and no recurring costs at all.
Topping up is easy too - you can register a credit/debit card with your Three account via the website and then use that card to purchase topups online or by phone from whereever you happen to be. Having purchased credit (which never expires until used) you need to convert it into an "add on" (i.e. the data bundle of your choice, which then has 30 days validity from the point of conversion). You can track the actual data you've consumed via your online account too, so its easy to see how much you ar eusing and if/when a top up should be done.
The Three UK website
3 - Coverage shows coverage for Italy and it is pretty accurate (my house in Italy is shown as right on the edge of 3G coverage; when I tried it out in practice, half of my house has coverage and the other half doesn't!). Obviously if this product appeals to you, 1st thing to do is to use the coverage checker to see if your Italian location has a signal - if not, it's no use for you until/unless they roll out the network further.
The 1GB allowance for a tenner would be quite sufficient for a months general purpose web use, including all normal surfing as long as you are not doing too much streaming video and restrict your downloading to music as opposed to movies.
One tip is to only top up the card with data bundles ... if you leave general credit (i.e. money that can be used for phone calls/texts etc.) AND you stray outwith Tre's Italian 3G network, you would then roam onto another operator's italian GPRS network, and be charged through the nose per MB of data (i.e. your credit would vanish PDQ). If you want to have call credit on the card, you can configure the modem to use a 3G connection only - that will prevent the automatic roaming and you will just get disconnected if you roam out of coverage.
If you think that the £50 outlay for a seldom used tech toy is hard to justify, bear in mind that it can be used on any (XP/Vista) PC, and would make an excellent backup home broadband solution in the UK (for when your ISP has a major outage or you are "between providers" etc.).
All in all, it's a fantastic package for me. Final thing - you can also get it on a pay monthly contract and currently (may '08) if you are already a Three UK customer you get the modem free and qualify for a 50% reduction in any of the 3 monthly bundles (i.e. £5/7.50/12.50 for 1/3/7GB respectively) for the duration of the contract. So, if you will be a regular visitor to your Italian place, it may be cheaper/more convenient to pay a fiver a month than to use the PAYG model.
08-05-08, 05:54 PM
mobile broadband
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