Portable Wi-Fi options
 

We have a house in Italy, occupied one month per year at most. We had Wi-Fi in the house; for some time it had worked without our being billed for it; we got there this time and it wasn’t working. I thought, rather than re-establish it paying for time when we wouldn’t use it and have what could be a long wait on a service call, I’d get a portable Wi-Fi device such as I’d used before. I have cellular data service from the Italian carrier TIM and it works as a hotspot, but for various reasons that isn’t enough.

After some misadventures with a PayPal payment going to a provider that’s disappeared, I got HipPocketWifi from France. I’m wondering what’s best to use in the future: something like this that’s a rental of hardware with service provided for the time, or purchase hardware (could it become obsolete before a few trips?), and then does some kind of arrangement for service in Italy need to be made? Or another approach?

You could always purchase a MiFi hotspot and then insert a local Sim when you get there. The catch is you need to check to make sure the hotspot supports the frequencies used in the country.

If your phone supports eSIM maybe you could use it as a hotspot?

Have a look at Airola and KnowRoaming for downloadable eSIM’s

Maybe a ‘made for Google Fi’ phone would work for your next visit.

They allow you to pause that service.

Google Fi also gives you free data sim that share the data with your phone line. You could just insert that data sim to a Pocket Wifi device or an old android phone. When I had a line with Google Fi before, I got 3 additional data sim from them. Whenever someone go outside of the country, I let them take my data sim with them. They get data on their phone while traveling. They don't really need call/txt anyway when they got Whatsapp and internet.

Thanks, I don't know if I understand enough about these options even to ask informed questions, such as: how much does it matter whether we're getting data by Wi-Fi or cellular service. I understand that Google Voice, which we'd use only for emergencies, requires Wi-Fi. Does Google Fi count as Wi-Fi? If I search for Pocket Wifi on Amazon or wherever, are there features I should look for?

On this trip we ordered https://hippocketwifi.com/en/ from France; we've been in the house more than we'd like, with my wife being unwell, and quickly their 1GB/day plan wasn't enough; we upgraded to unlimited. For the next trip it's tempting to use them again and not worry; they can ship the device to us in the U.S. , and have 28 days of unlimited data for around 200 euros. Another tourist-based service, in Italy, is https://www.witourist.com , but their pickup options may not be so convenient to us.

We have all Apple devices; my iPhone 8+ appears not to be listed with eSIM, and I regularly put an Italian SIM in it. I think my wife's 12 will still be locked to AT&T for a while.

The cheapest option will be to go to a local Italian mobile carrier's store and select a hotspot and plan for it. It would probably be cheaper than eur200/month! That way you will be assured of buying a device that works with the local network. Just look at their websites to see what they have.

You could also call your local landline ISP you were using and see if they have a month-to-month or partial-year plan.

When I asked at the local electronics store as I was getting my phone service re-established, I asked about home Wi-Fi with TIM, and they said it would be 4-year contract at 30 eur/month. I was in a jet-lagged state and didn't want to think further at that time. With the service I had before, they said it had to be paid 6 months at a time, and the price I last paid would amount to 200 eur/year, but I worry about finding it not working on arrival and waiting for a service call.

Google Fi is a carrier like AT&T. Google Fi uses T-mobile and Sprint networks, but it only charges $20 a month for call/txt. Data usage is $10/GB globally. If you sign up just before you leave for Italy, than you could end up paying as little as $20 + $10/GB used, because after you came back, you could suspend the service. It doesn't have a contract. So if your iPhone 8 is unlocked, you could just use the Fi SIM and turn on your hotspot tethering and it should work ($10/GB). You can even test it here in states before you leave. The only catch is that you don't know if your place in Italy will have roaming partners with Google Fi.

When we were in France in 2019, Google Fi speed was over 100Mbps at Paris.

As I think it over, perhaps the 4-year contract was assuming the installation of a landline. If I buy something like this modem from TIM, maybe I could get a data plan with it that doesn't have such a commitment. Anyway, it's late on this trip for me to look into it; I was thinking about what to advise in case we let friends stay in the house. For the next trip, I might order HipPocketWifi for a week, which could be extended if another plan doesn't work out.

There are a number of options with eSIM’s. May be cheaper to buy an unlocked phone which supports BOTH standard (on a card)
SIM and eSIM’s (downloadable SIM’s)

These phones often support global service and are becoming more popular.

A Mifi hotspot is pretty much the same thing, the difference is that you own the hardware (and can take it to wherever you want)... you just need to insert a SIM. When things get better, I was thinking of doing the same (although I've had good luck connecting up to three devices to my phone which is sufficient for my needs).

Which portable hotspots are both popular and simple to configure for us non-tech folks?

I'd hazard a guess that anything you buy from a carrier directly will be pretty simple, with any of the nuts-and-bolts configuration already set up for you or with instructions provided.

How about 'easy to configure' travel routers? I'd mostly use one to capture wifi and broadcast to several phones and ipads.