This is for people living on the Italian side of the border. Here the reach of ADSL is rarely much beyond the coastal strip, so with a few notable exceptions we're stuck with dialup. However, the situation isn't all bad, as the mobile phone companies do a quite decent job of providing a workable alternative. Although it looks complex it's actually quite simple once you get the hang of it.

There are several possibilities, depending on how you use your computer. Vodafone and others charge you a flat rate per month, for which you get so many hours of connect time (go to a shop for details). This is fine for people who only go online for an hour or two a day, but if you're used to being always connected (as with ADSL) it's a pain.

If you want an always-on service the one I can speak with authority on is TIM, who have two prepay plans. The first one limits you to 1GB of data traffic per month (only 500MB for the first month; if you renew you get the second 500MB as well). Whether this is enough for you depends on where you live. If you're near a major population centre you'll probably get the new UMTS (3rd generation) signal, but it doesn't reach up in the hills. The difference is a ten to one speed improvement, but even the slower GPRS is better than dial-up. The package costs €20/month.

The second plan costs €25/month and gives you 9GB, but only from 5pm till 9am and all weekends. So if you need to go online during the day it's no good.

Neither of these plans care how you connect. It's all the same if you use GPRS or UMTS; the packages also cover access at public WiFi points.

Now here it gets complicated. 9GB is more than you can use in a month, even with fast UMTS. But if you do have UMTS 1GB isn't enough because so many sites are media-rich and eat up bandwidth. To cut through this, I'll summarise:

1 The first (€20) plan is good if you only have GPRS; in fact you may have difficulty using up the 1GB.

2 The second package is good if you only use your computer at off-peak times.

3 If you have a fast connection and want access at any time you'll probably need to use two SIM cards with one package on each. Every day at 9am and 5pm you switch SIMs and change to the other package. It's not as bad as it sounds; I've been doing it for three months.

4 Don't go with a contract. If anything goes wrong and the package expires you'll pay a fortune for data traffic. With prepay the worst that can happen is the SIM runs out of funds. I keep about €5 on mine; the phone is never used for voice calls so the credit never runs out.

Finally, the phone. Most phones have GPRS these days; all you need is one that has a connection to a PC. USB is probably best, though Bluetooth can also work well, if not always quite as reliably. Nokia have the most reliable software. If you want - and are able - to use UMTS you'll need a 3G phone; my choice is the Nokia E60, costing a bit less than €200. Don't be tempted to use the phone you carry with you every day; you'll soon get irritated at having to stop downloading just to pop out to the shop.

This article originally appeared as a reply to a question on AngloINFO Liguria.Tag: internet Tag: umts Tag: gprs Articles by The Riviera Woman General Articles Home Contact