Telecommunications in Italy

Hello dear Members,

Can you please list some of the main Internet Service providers in Italy? You may also include the cost related to their Internet subscription.

Another issue related to the telecommunication topic, is mobile plans. Can you please share with us:
>With which operator are you subscribed to?
>How are you finding their services?
>What kind of facilities do they offer?

Lastly, what is the best option according to you to make long distance calls in Italy?

Your views/suggestions will be highly valued.

Wish you all a great day & thanks you in advance for your participation.
_______________________________
Expat.com Team

Internet service ...are some.
Fastweb
Telecom
Vodafone
and others...i am with Fastweb and so far is the best i tried.
Wireless modem. The cost it is about 20 euros a month...unlimited access.Others are more exp.

About mobile plans i will suggest the rechargeable cards and not the plan. For the plan you will need a Bank account and u pay every month by bank..also i wont trust to much the plans. Card , you charge and you talk as much you want but always you know what you do.
Operators are Wind, Tim, Tre, Poste mobile, Vodafone-Omnitel

I am with Wind and is not bad. For plans the cheapest it is Tre but the only bad thing it is that they don't have max coverage.

For long distance calls i will recommend voip raider.www.voipraider.com calls made from computer to land lines or cell....to call USA it is Free and you can talk as much you want.Prices are very low anyway.
for the ones they do not have access to a computer they can use prepaid cards.

For any other info ...contact me ..i will help as much i can.

Thanks for your contribution Lu33 :)

Hi, first post, nice website! I have been looking for something like this for a while! I have been in Italy for a while now and understand all too well the difficulties of "culture shock" especially if you come from a place where services and "Customer service" is much better.  I value customer service and strongly think that it reflects the products that people buy.  I have just changed my internet provider from Telecom to Fastwweb.  After one month from a telesales call that promised high speed no problem broadband at 20MB - to today the technician, he came and just "dumped" wires and then went on to inform me of the speed not even being near 20mb and then the cherry on the cake, he informs me that only 3 IP addresses (Only three computers) can surf the internet at any one time! What?  I have heard of hyped up selling and even bent the truth when I was a salesman back in the UK, but this takes the biscuit! Anyway in two days they "Fastweb" should activate the service and then I will see if the speed is any better than Telecom, let's hope the internet service is better than the customer service, I phoned them to ask about why I had been miss sold this product, they responded with "oh! it wasn't me attitude" as I expected. I cancelled with Telecom basically because the customer service stinks and the service was at best unreliable, always cutting off…..
A question, does anyone other than me have Fastweb? If so do you know how to get round this “3 IP” limit.  I thought of a switch to create a separate lan, but won't be sure until Friday if this will work…..

Hi bareoftheair,

Welcome to Expat.com! :)

Thank you for your contribution.

Hello there,
Another internet service provider, offering wimax/ satellite broadband is italia-wifi.com.
They're an Italian-based but English speaking company and offer really fast broadband speeds at a variety of pricing packages. They also guarantee 100% coverage of Italy!!!!
As a potential bonus for some expats, subscribers get an English IP address, which means they can easily watch BBC etc. on their PCs!

In terms of telephony, I personally use skype where possible, but for my technophobic family, I use jajah.com, which do really cheap calls to Europe, and I often get a 150 minute free call!
Hope this is helpful Best wishes
Julie

I recommend the new satellite system Ka, which covers much of Italy. My provider is Open Sky, and the service is Tooway. I pay c 24 euros a month, for 6GB. I have saved so much compared with Telecom Italian dial up. I have an old lime which cannot get ASDL by the way. There are eight different providers for different parts of Italy. I emailed them all ad only Tooway answered. An excellent helpful service.

Beware Tele Tu. I was also cold called by Tele Tu, who offered a flat rate for dial up, ten days free cancellation of the contract by phone. It turned out there was no such flat rate, and the service would be more expensive even than Telecom Italia. Within my ten days, I started to try to cancel by phone. Oh boy was I messed aroun d.Finally the right office answered and recorded my cancellation. Imagine my surprise to keep receiving phone bills, from November2011 to end February 2012, plus , plus a 49 euro cancellation carve, plus about a hundred euros for collecting the alleged debt. Unfortunately I was away from January to May 2012, and only just got their threatening letters. On  calling   I was told I should have checked their web site for the real costs, and that they only received confirmation of my cancellation in mid January  (when I wrote to complain, and only incidentally mentioned that   I had cancelled in early December). So beware Tele  Tu and  cold calls. It seems they can say what they like to persuade you to sign up, And when  it turns out to be lies you have no recourse. I wont be caught this way again!