[inquisitor]

Originally Posted by Italia

Thanks. We do have an Italian TIM full sized SIM but it is for a phone not data. Could I use that to try?

Yes, you could use it so detect signal strength, but do not connect to the internet as long as you are not sure about the costs for data for that particular SIM card.

I could also get one on another network to compare signal strength if that seems like a good idea.

You should examine signal qualtiy for all Italian networks before turning to a certain carrier. If you have a standard-sized British SIM (or an adaptor for your iPhone's microSIM) you could use it for a network survey, too, since your British SIM will probably be admitted to more than Italian network.

The 3G router is Solwise -Solwise Compact and mobile built in 3G modem, Wireless Access Point, Router - NET-3G-51R

Not the best choice in my eyes as its capabilites are rather limited. E.g. after having looked in its manual I couldn't find any option to manually select networks, which makes my above proposal of accessing all the different networks by a British SIM impossible.

then antenna is Solwise - 3G Broadband Directional Antenna - NET-3G-REN_15YSX

Quite expensive for a Yagi antenna and 10m cable is a bit long. You should know that each meter of cable will attenuate signal strength by at least 1dB, so after those 10m will reduce your antenna's gain of 15dB to 5dB. But let's see if you can't get a decent signal though.

Another difficulty is that I only have 2 days to get this up and running but I gave heard it can take 48 hours to activate the prepaid SIMS, is that correct?

48h seems a bit long to me. Maybe some of our fellow Italian forum members can answer on this.