I will be staying in a rental apartment in the Castello area of Venice for a week--great place in every way it appears except no wifi. I would like to have wifi so I can use my laptop or Ipad in the apartment. I was also going to bring an unlocked Iphone 4 (running on T-mobile here in US) and get an Italian SIM card when I get there. I've never used my phone for tethering and am not sure how to do that. It seems like it would be too expensive to use a 3g or 4g signal, and not sure how well that would work in those little Venetian streets anyway.

I know there is the city wifi in Venice but sounds like that doesn't work inside apartments, even though I can probably get a signal in a park that's not so far away.

So I'm thinking of renting a portable wifi hotspot before I go. Has anyone had experience using one of these in Venice? I see ads for a UK company called TEP, but have read a number of bad reviews. XCom global is another company with a mifi. Has anybody used one in Venice or at least Italy? The other ads I see are for Telecomsquare, which seems to be Japanese in origin but now available for European use. Cellular Abroad is another company, and they are actually located right near me in So Cal, but they are quite expensive. But maybe I could pick up the device directly from them and avoid shipping charge.

I need data more than I need voice or texts. Will also be going to Spain for 3 weeks after Venice, but the apartments and hotels seem to have wifi. My Venice apartment seems to be the only one not having it (but is an extremely good deal through Cross-Pollinate, whom I have rented from before and consider very reliable.)

Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions.

Try to see if you can make tethering work AT HOME. If your phone gets only a weak 3g/4g signal, a wifi hotspot box will also get weak 3g/4g signal. I tether my laptop to my android phone using an Italian SIM. In March, I got a SIM with 500mb for one week for 26€ from TIM kiosk at FCO. It only took 5 min at the store, but I have everything setup beforehand.

1. Phone is unlocked
2. I have defined Wifi hotspot WPA protection at home and programmed my laptop to immediately recognize my protected Wifi signal coming from my Android phone.

After that, as soon as I hit "Wifi hotspot enable" button on my Android, my laptop got connected to the internet.

Be sure you understand your data usage. I use about 50mb/week at home and 100mb/week while traveling without hotspot or 200mb/week with, so I know what kind of data bucket I need to buy. If I use the data SIM for navigation, I need to allocate 10mb/hour when the GPS navigation is active.

There are tutorials on how to do hotspot on Youtube.

At worst, the Venice McDonalds has free WiFi!

>>>I was also going to bring an unlocked Iphone 4 (running on T-mobile here in US) and get an Italian SIM card when I get there. <<<
>>>So I'm thinking of renting a portable wifi hotspot before I go.<<<

No need to get something in advance. Get one in Italy from the TIM store when you get your SIM.

http://www.tim.it/internet/offerte-i...-per-chiavetta

And you can get a 'chiavetta' for your laptop from phone shops too - we live in Venice & we've sometimes bought one from one of the Vodaphone shops when the our normal wifi service has had problems. It's a USB stick which gives you access to Vodaphone's or whoever's service for a set period.

You are right in that the city wifi only works outside, and then not everywhere - and non-residents have to pay to access it anyway.