Getting connected – internet in Italy

My experiences with internet in Italy have been shaky to say the least. In our previous rented appartment in the city, we got a line put in by Telecom Italia to use broadband (but not the phone). We were stung by a EUR 200 “contribution” for the connection, and then our bimonthly bills went up by EUR 20 over the course of a few months. When we came to closing the account, they insisted we call from the same phoneline “for security”. We had to procure a phone to make that one final call.

In the new house, we’d like to use Telecom Italia’s competitor, FastWeb, who get rave reviews and do cable TV to boot. They should bring a line up to our village this autumn. Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, in our temporary rented room, we sure don’t want to pay another EUR 200 connection charge, but I need the internet to work. We were advised that mobile internet has taken leaps and bounds recently and is now as fast as fixed line broadband. You connect the mobile to the computer with a cable or bluetooth.

There are two main providers: TIM and Vodafone.

- Vodafone do a competitive, fast service, but our village isn’t covered by their 3G network

- TIM’s service uses older technology and is therefore slower, but does cover our village

- TIM offer unlimited data transfer for EUR 25 a month, but only at evenings and weekends and for a total of 3-4 hours a day over the course of a month

- Their only other package is unlimited time online at EUR 20, but only half a gig of data transfer – much less than we’re used to having

We went with the last option, as I need the internet during the day. It took us 5 days and an equivalent number of trips to town to get it working. Although I had bought a Motorola phone to use with the TIM service, the shop didn’t mention that Motorola also expect you to pay for their software – cheeky! (I hear Nokia are much more reasonable!)

We’ve only had the service 3 weeks, and haven’t been thrilled. We fail to connect at busy times.

Then it stopped working altogether a couple of days ago. After a day and a half of waiting, we took phone, computer and all associated cables and paperwork to the computer shop. Shut for holidays. Another trip to town and we tried the phone shop that had sold us the package. Shut also.

I start to wonder how much petrol we burn for the sake of TIM. I resort to calling them. Ten times, each trying different routes of their “Press 1 for X, press 2 for Y” system. Nothing about reporting a fault or getting updated on the service, and no way to speak to an operator. A new computer shop explain the Centralinea has been damaged by the forest fires raging through Italy this week. They give me a new number to see if this was the problem.

Thirty minutes on hold with Cristina Aguilera’s CandyMan blasting in my ear – could they have thought of a better torture? I held out though, and eventually got to tell some poor bloke just how horrible the song is. Finally I found out that there was, in fact, a fault. They might get it up and running again tomorrow afternoon. And no, they wouldn’t reimburse me.

What did I expect, he said, it’s like buying a Fiat Punto instead of a Porsche!

PS Internet finally got started again after another call to TIM and 4 days wait. At least Fiat have customer service!