Italy: Options for heavy internet usage for a month

[wco81]

It may well be the case.

I don't have the E61i manual but everywhere, it shows "E" under the signal strength, which I believe denotes Edge signal.

That was the case down in Liguria inside my hotel room but when I went out to the terrace, the "E" went away and that's when my key worked and Wind EASY Connect prompted me for my SIM password.

But I found a Wind shop and they said it's UMTS coverage here, regardless of what my phone indicates (maybe the "E" means something else). The Wind coverage page indicated UMTS and HSDPA up here for the towns of Bellagio and Varenna.

I could lug my laptop to the shop but since I didn't purchase anything from them, I don't think he's going to help me that much.

In any event, turns out my hotel is letting me use the Wifi free. When I reserved it, they said it was 5 Euro an hour but the reception here is just giving me passwords and said they would not charge me.

So I don't have quite the impetus to find a working solution. However, I want to use this in future trips. Hotel wifi tends to be poor in speed and not as secure. When loading multiple tabs, many sites fail to connect.

Also would like to use iPhone as well, so a Mifi type of device may ultimately be the better solution. No need to deal with software and I wonder if the Huawei E1752 doesn't have as good a reception as my Nokia.

Failing that, maybe update to a newer unlocked Nokia or an Android phone which can run hotspot software.

I don't trust software which has to install drivers and kernel extensions. Some of the files in the framework which Mobile Partner installed seem to be some old open source headers.

[Effendi]

The "E" letter on your E61i means that you are using Edge connection, no 3G.
It could be because you have an American E61i wich is quad-band on GSM but only dual-band on UMTS, "seeing" only the American bands (850/1900) and not the European one (2100). A similar problem could be with the huawei usb dongle too... did you ever see 3G connections in Europe with them?

[wco81]

Hmm, I thought the E61i supported all the UMTS bands all over but you may be right. First used a SIM in Berlin and the speed seemed poor over there as well as PosteMobile SIM in Tuscany.

On the Huawei, it's hard to say. But it came with a Dutch manual so the eBay vendor probably got some surplus units destined for Holland.

Like I said, in Deiva Marina, I got it to prompt for the PIN on my SIM once so it detected a network it liked down there.

Unfortunately, I'm spending time in smaller towns so there aren't many shops and those which exist do not have much inventory of dongles. I do spend 2 nights in Milano but it's at the end of the trip and there's no point in buying a key then.

[Effendi]

In Como surely you can find a good Wind shop. There are 2 in Como and 2 in Cantù:
http://www.wind.it/it/privati/rivend...P=&Invia=Invia
By the way usually Huawei dongles first ask for the PIN, then they search the network. At least surely it works this way with the Wind program for Windows.

[wco81]

Hmm, then it must be that the software can't detect the modem at all.

I'll see if they're willing to try my dongle out, because I can't take my laptop in (an hour or two boat trip).

Either that or wait until my last two nights in Milano.

Like I said, Mifi seems like a better way. Or maybe an unlocked Nokia or Android with fast processors and RAM to run hotspot software.

[wco81]

OK, I'm up and running on Wind!

I'd held off because my computer was crashing left and right and I attributed it to the Mobile Partner software, which is a Java application.

But long after I removed those files manually (no uninstaller!), my computer continued to crash.

The Wifi at the hotel in Lake Como was bad and after putting up with it for a week, I decided to give the 3G modem another try.

I re-installed Mobile Partner and voila, it worked. Fastest download I saw was about 90 kB/s late at night. From the same source, it was as slow as 20 kB/s.

But it didn't disconnect like the Wifi and it was pretty consistent.

So I've connected through the Wind client as well as Mobile Partner, which has a tendency to crash. I've sent an SMS to my iPhone (roaming on Vodaphone IT).

I will have to remember to deactivate the Mega 100 Ore before I leave Italy in a couple of days to preserve 7.5 Euro credit.

Now the person at the shop said I should be able to recharge online from anywhere. So would I be able to say add 5 or 10 Euro a few months later to renew my expiration date? Otherwise, I would assume my Wind SIM would expire at the end of May 2011.

[Effendi]

Online refilling with non-Italian credit cards is sometimes a problem... buying a refill in Italy is better, just check the validity (they expire after some time).

[wco81]

Turned out the Mobile Partner software, other than crashing sometimes (but leaving the connection going) was probably fine.

My laptop was crashing because of a bad RAM DIMM.

I have to say it's a pretty good deal, even if I only used about a dozen hours. Now I'll know better next time. I noticed that the Wind SIM roams onto T-Mobile network so I'll see if the roaming charges are decent and try to use up the remaining hours in the month.

Hotel Wifi should be much faster but a lot of hotels in Italy are using this password system which becomes a hassle to use.

That's one benefit of Italy over France and some neighboring countries is the cheap SIMs.

[vegemite]

How did you get your codice fiscale? I tried with the website Comuni.it - Servizi e Strumenti per la Pubblica Amministrazione, il Cittadino e gli Enti Locali - I keep getting the Italian 'incomplete data' error. What did you have to through to get your WIND pre-paid SIM? Where do you get it from? Just look up WIND in a phone directory?