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Information wi-fi hire in Italy

Ian Sutton

1000+ Posts
Wi-fi hire company in Italy
https://www.expressowifi.com/why-expresso/

My initial reaction was that most places we stay have wi-fi now, so what's the point. However this Italian company offer battery powered wifi (router?) that you pick up on arrival & drop off on departure (it looks to be very Rome focused). €6 a day according to the person who flagged it as their preferred option on another site.

2.5 hours battery life claimed, and presumably you can use at the hotel / apartment whilst the battery is being recharged. An alternative to roaming charges on the phone, plus more flexible for tablets/laptops.

I'm not sure we'd use it (I like to have my head up when on holiday, only buried in a tablet screen in downtime back at the apartment), but an interesting option that might suit others.
 
This is interesting. We own a house that mostly sits empty except for the 2-3 weeks that we're there, it's been every two years but may be becoming yearly, and pay around €100 every six months for the Wi-Fi. Last time it wasn't working on our arrival, and we waited most of the first week for a technician to fix it (antenna knocked out by a storm?). This year we haven't received an email bill, so it may have been shut down. If this works, picking it up on arrival in Rome, it might be good for us.

On the last trip, we also got a SIM for one device, which then worked as a Wi-Fi hotspot for the other devices, but the initial allowance ran out when we were using it for primary service in the house. It would be interesting to compare the prices.

We have a trip to Italy coming up in September, and I'll have some more technical questions ahead.
 
Re-reading the info posted, there are also other companies doing this, but considering this company's Rome focus (Pick up and drop off at the airport makes great sense, but many of the other locations are in Rome), I could see this might be perfect in your situation. I'm glad I posted it, as I was a bit uncertain how good an idea it is!
 
Although the info was interesting for some members, I did not think that the list was open to advertisements (albeit disguised). We were fortunate this time but the Italian Ginzo knives and ED tablets will soon be upon us.
 
Although the info was interesting for some members, I did not think that the list was open to advertisements (albeit disguised). We were fortunate this time but the Italian Ginzo knives and ED tablets will soon be upon us.

Hi Frank
Very much not intended as an advert & I've no connections whatsoever with this company. The link was added before I realised there were multiple companies doing this.
regards
Ian
 
Hi Pauline
As the original post is past the editing stage, if you think the link ought to be disabled, then feel free to do so. I'm as against spamming as much as Frank is, so no desire to make it appear like they have a free hand to do so!
regards
Ian
 
Ian, Sorry for the implicit accusation. It was not my intent. I guess I meant and should have written anything other than "disguised". I do not think the post should be removed as it obviously was useful to a lot of folks. I apologize to you and to the list. best, Frank
 
This is most definitely not an advertisement, nor would Ian ever do that. I am glad he posted it as I never heard about it. Although, it is not really a traditional WiFi. It is is a MiFi or mobile WiFi. I took a look at the site for a little bit and it looks really interesting. I would disagree though, with the statement that it is Rome Focused. You can pick up and drop off at multiple airports around the country as well as any TNT point anywhere in Italy.
 
Hi Tony
I'd missed the TNT pickup/dropoff - I'd just seen a list of around 15-20 locations of which ~ half seemed to be in Rome. That must get a lot of cities in scope.

I've no idea how MiFi works (I can be a bit of a luddite with electronics!). Is it a very localised wireless wi-fi, that you log into with password using the usual devices, or something different? The one scenario where we really could have used it, is when our old hand held satnav was struggling for a signal and we were in the car - if it works in that scenario, then we might consider retiring the old satnav (it must be a decade old now, but still very good vs. in-car options).

regards
Ian
 
We are currently in an apartment in Friuli with no wifi, so my husband hooked up mifi tethered to our cellphones. We were initially going through a lot of data, but he found another plan that lets us do it more economically. He's currently napping on this rainy afternoon, but I can put him on later to answer any questions. Advantages of being married to an engineer.
 
Yeah, I am not sure how many locations TNT has in Italy, but I would hazard to guess close to a thousand or so.

A MiFi or Mobile WiFi is a small device that has an extremely large antenna built in, so it picks up a better and stronger wireless signal than lets say your average smartphone or wirelessly enabled tablet. Each one has a SIM card installed, but is only using a data plan. It then acts as a base from which you can connect multiple different devices to. So in this last respect, it works extremely similar to a standard WiFi router. In fact, from your laptop, tablet, or smartphone it would appear absolutely no different than your home WiFi router.

When travelling in Italy, you often run into a situation where the old building has really thick walls and you can't get a good mobile connection. You can always place the MiFi on the windowsill, so it is getting a clear connection and then you just connect to it throughout the apartment.
 
Ian, regarding your question about a SatNav and the car:

With a MiFi, you will have a data connection to any of your devices as long as the MiFi unit is getting a signal. Of course there will be areas in the country where you are just so remote that you will not get a signal.

But what I would recommend is that if you have a smartphone or tablet, just install google maps. While you still have a connection, download an offline area. Offline areas can only be so big, but you can easily download about a quarter of italy as an offline area provided you have enough memory available. An alternative is to download an app called "maps.me". You can then download individual regions of the country or the entire country. Once it is downloaded you don't have to worry about a data connection again as your device has all it needs.
 
This is the husband responding now that my nap is over!

We actually have a Mifi with us but it is locked to a particular company (Freedompop) which gave us OK coverage in Venice but not so good out here in the countryside. We had the same experience in France last year with not so good coverage outside of the cities.

That said we had bought SIM cards for TIM when in Venice. They were data mostly SIM's. You can make calls if you have money on the account but they are expensive at euro 0.25 per minute. Fine for the occasional emergency call or text but we use Skype or WhatsApp for most calls. We have been using them mostly for data. We also have phones that allow you to tether, also called setting up a hotspot (iPhone 6 and Moto G4) so have been using that for our main data connection for two iPads and a laptop. So instead of a Mifi we have been using the phones as our Mifi instead.

I will say that the amount of data we are going through is a bit surprising and a problem. we seem to be using more than 500MB per day. I have had to turn off things I usually never think about at home like the fact that much of my data is on cloud drives and automatically gets accessed but this costs much data when using your phone as the Mifi. We started with each phone having a 2GB plan for Euro 20 each. In Venice where the apt had Wifi this was working fine. But without wifi here in the countryside we have been using way more phone data. So far in 3 days here I have added 1 GB to my phone and 2GB to Amy's phone and we will run through that in the next 2 days, maybe sooner.

And the real problem is figuring out the best way to add more data on TIM. Their site is a confusing array of offers and for each account (you can set up a MyTIM account to see your account details and install the app also) you get special offers ("Offerte per Te), but no consistency to those offers. For example, yesterday I saw an offer on Amy's account to get 2GB plus unlimited music for Euro 3.99 so I grabbed that. On my phone I have not seen this offer. Instead I saw an offer to get 1GB good for 7 days for Euro 5. I was looking for what to do next and I see an offer now on Amy's phone for up to 10GB of data for Euro 30 but also requires a Euro 5 activation fee. It would automatically renew in 28 days but if there is money on the account obviously it can't. This seems to be the best offer I have seen to get a large amount of data.

There are other companies that you can go to like 3 and Wind. I do not know if they have better offers for more data.

Your offer to get a Mifi for Euro 6 per day is about equivalent to getting 1GB of data per day. It looks like ExpressoWifi is unlimited data. That seems like a pretty good deal if you use about 1GB per day or more. If you use less, than just tethering to the phone and adding data as needed may be a better deal. You should ask them which service they use but in Rome you should have no coverage problem. That's more of a concern out in the countryside.

Hope this helps and is not too long winded... Larry
 
Thanks for that Larry - I didn't understand all of that, but I am a luddite so it's to be expected. I still have my old Nokia!

My partner has a smartphone and did invoke a reasonable deal for data roaming on her UK account. Am I right in understanding that under your current setup, you're using the phone for the data, but syncing with laptop or tablet to use them (under the phone's data allowance?).

Apologies if it's a daft question - my Nokia ownership says all you need to know about my mobile phone expertise (though it does have lovely tudor oak panelling ;))
 
Hi Ian,

Most smartphones have the feature that you can turn them into a hotspot and connect your laptop or tablet to their wifi signal. As you note this uses the phones data allowance.

Hope this helps.
Larry

(As far as I'm concerned, it's all magic. Amy)
 
Cool - many thanks Larry

FWIW I'm with Amy on this, considering this technical stuff in the category of 'the dark arts' :shifty: ;)

regards
Ian
 
Hi Ian,

Most smartphones have the feature that you can turn them into a hotspot and connect your laptop or tablet to their wifi signal. As you note this uses the phones data allowance.

Hope this helps.
Larry

(As far as I'm concerned, it's all magic. Amy)
But you need to be careful with it. My Vodafone contract doesn't allow this. If I were to use my phone as a hotspot for my laptop, Vodafone would not count the data as part of my free monthly data that I have. Instead, they charge me by the kb. So it can get extremely expensive, extremely quickly.
 
Thanks for that Tony - will find out before we try this
 
Reporting here that I got the Expresso Wi-Fi. I did a chat in advance about which cellular provider they use, thinking it might be an obscure one that would have trouble in a stone house in a small town in the valley. The rep kept giving other talking points before answering that the provider was Vodafone, but in fact on the device it's TIM.

I picked it up at what's mainly a luggage storage place off Piazza Venezia in Rome. It's smaller than an iPhone, easily portable. When we got to the house in Umbria, I was surprised to see that our Wi-Fi was on, since we haven't been billed for it in over a year. So we didn't really need to get the Mifi. I got a TIM plan that allows using my phone as a hotspot, so we have two options for my wife to get service when we go out. Both risk timing out, and it's nice that the Mifi doesn't have a data limit, but I don't think we'll hit the limit on the phone plan.

We have a tall house, and I experimented with having the Expresso device as our Wi-Fi if we were on different floors. It worked well one floor away, less well two floors away.
 

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