Does anyone have experience using the new UMTS equipped cell phones from Samsung, Nokia, Sony Ericsson & Motorola together with a TIM Sim card to access hi speed internet?
I don't speak Italian & have trouble grasping all the nuances of this purchase.
It sounds like what I am supposed to do is buy the UMTS phone, which I can then connect to my laptop & use with the TIM card, to access the Internet at hi speed (not dialup speed).
The higher available rate with TIM in Italy is 25 euros per running month for 9 Gb.
TIM Sim cards are selling for 10 euros so it would be a great deal if I already had the phone but alas...
Any advise would be appreciated
Regards
Martha

That all sounds about right - you effectively use your mobile as a modem that talks to your computer, usually via a wireless Bluetooth connection, though you can use cable. You can download software to manage the connectivity, but you might want to check if you're using a Mac. Can't remember. Advertised speed is 3.8 Meg. Uh huh. And I have no grey hair.

The fly in the ointment is coverage - if you're in the sticks, dont bank on it. Cities are usually pretty well covered, but you may have to experiment a bit if you're behind thick walls. Vodafone coverage is held to be slightly better than TIM, and they're none too clever. I know, I've tried.
They recently had a national press ad reading 'Broadband. Everywhere.*'

Everywhere. Asterisk. Meaning everywhere bar 30% of the country. Cute.

Mat,
Thanks for the info.
Is the service all pay as you go with TIM & Vodafone or do they have a fee for service contract to start up?
If you can add the service to your existing Sim card (as long as you have the correct UMTS phone), this looks like a great deal & not much lost if it does not work in some areas.
Regards
Martha

We did this recently with my husband's Treo. We just had to buy a € 5 TIM card (the cheapest; you could buy one with more time of course) and then pay € 25 for the Internet service to be added on. We could either pick up e-mail and some web sites directly on the phone using its browser software, or use the phone to connect via Bluetooth to our laptop. The €25 included free net access nights (very generous timing, since nights are defined as from 5 pm to 9 am) and weekends.

As I understand it, we weren't paying anything above the €25 (monthly rate) as long as we used the phone only on the Internet at the approved times. If we made voice calls or sent text messages, that would come out of the €5 initial card. You can, of course, add more phone time very easily.

We do have a Mac, and if anyone wants to try this with a Mac, you would need to download the correct modem scripts. Once we had those in place, it worked great.

I would suggest that you print out this web page and take it to the TIM store to explain what you want. That's what we did, even though I speak a little Italian, because it was the easiest way to communicate what we were looking for.

- Roz

I found this Italian faq very useful to set up my mac and my umts cell phone for internet use. The text is in Italian but should be easy to understand anyway. Also look if your providers' web site has documentation about the setup of your cell phone.

We decided to try both the TIM & Vodafone UMTS hispeed internet access.
Both are reasonably priced and easy to use. All you need is an unlocked bluetooth UMTS cell phone and a laptop.
The Vodafone service is 100 hours for 30 Euros anytime use while the TIM is 9 Gigs nighttime (5 pm to ?7am) and weekend use for 25 euros.
Regards
Martha