# WiFi in italy



## pmcclure (Dec 6, 2011)

I,m going to be in Italy in a few days crossing over from Austria. In Austria in a Macdonalds the wifi is free, but I believe in Italy you need an Italian registered phone to get a password that would give them access to the free wifi, so does anyone have the password that they would be willing to share?

Thanks

Peter


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## Stanner (Aug 17, 2006)

I think it's the same system in Germany as well, I tried to get a McD connection there and gave up in the end.


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## OurTour (Nov 29, 2011)

*McDonalds WiFi in Italy*

Hi Peter - yes, the Italians have enforced restrictions on open WiFi connections so they can attempt to track individual use, ostensibly as part of anti-terror operations. Same thing when you buy and Italian SIM - you have to present documentation to personally identify you so your Internet use can be tracked.

How well this all works in its attempts to interrupt terror group communications, and how much it stifles innovation and tourism, is an open point for debate. However, it would seem unwise for anyone to hand over their password, as from that point onwards anyone who has access to it will be browsing under their name. I'm no lawyer, but I'm guessing that if the police did come knocking, a defence which relied upon you saying you gave away your password may not be a good one.

We've found Italian Vodafone to be a good service though. Nope, it's not free, and we love free, but it's not too steep. You can either get a SIM in-country for about €20-odd for 5GB per month, no contract, or buy a pre-pay EuropaSIM from www.motorhomewifif.com, which is Italian-registered (and includes SMS messages, so you can use it to get onto free McDonalds wifi too) and gives you 500MB per day, costing €2 each day you use it. The EuropaSIM works in other European countries too, but you only get 100MB for your €2 in those places. Get in touch with Adam at motorhome wifi if you're interested in that option.

Of course, you can just buy the cheapest possible non-Internet SIM from any of the telcos in Italy, and use it just the once to get the SMS sent to you from McDonalds?

Cheers, Jason


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## Camdoon (Sep 21, 2012)

We managed to get a connection in McDs in Italy. We did have to go in and it took a while as the guy had a list of accounts and passwords on his IPhone. He gave us the phone (could you imagine that happening in the UK) as he was busy to try the codes and we eventually found a couple that worked. The usernames were unique and the passwords were long and complex.


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