WiFi on Trenitalia/Italo

The Frecciarossa trains have WiFi connectivity, but I'm not sure how you would pay for it. At the beginning of May 2013 they had an introductory special with various cell phone providers in Italy. I have a TIM phone, I texted TIM while on the train and wasinstantly provided a user id and pin. The bianca train I was on don't have wi-fi and I don't know about the argento.

Oh I didn't bother checking to see if Trenitalia's wifi service is free or not. I know that for Italo it is and they have it on all the trains.

I just took trenitalia train from Rome to Florence and Florence to Venice and you can log onto the free wifi on the train. You will have to enter your credit card info in the login page once you're on the train. You will be charged .01 euro (1 cent) for period of 24 hr usage. Also only works wen train is moving, not at stations. Hope that helps!

Really? Just a penny? Yeah that helps!

I'm having a hard time understanding how they would charge you €0.01. I mean, via your credit card? Someone walking around collecting one-cent coins (JOKE!!!). And then you would likely have a charge for a foreign transaction - I can't imagine how that would work... Unless you had a no-fee credit card...? Maybe it's a dummy charge only to satisfy some peculiarity of their software? Duh... I think I have a headache.

I've occasionally been charged €0.01 on a credit card in the past. Hotels sometimes do that to ensure that the credit card is valid, so there are no "surprises" when the guest tries to pay their bill. However, it does seem a bit odd that they're ONLY charging €0.01 for the Wi-Fi service?

Stick with Italo-its free!

James, yes, that's what I want to do. But I'm having a hard time registering on their website because they want me to enter an Italian address to get the card (which I don't even want in the first place, but I think that's the only way to sign up). Any suggestions?

The last time I used it was in March so it may have changed. I used wifi with a British phone and my British wifi enabled netbook. If you have an Italian address you can register online or at a .Italo lounge. If you don't, you can do as I did and register on the train. You do it online at your seat and you get 60 minutes. They send an email with a code and if you enter the code you can use the link for the rest of the trip. That worked pretty well on my iPhone, but by no means perfectly, and not so well on my netbook. The pipe is pretty small and when several people are on it the throughput becomes a dribble. It wasn't enough to get the password in within the hour - it doesn't come right away. That was the case both ways between Bologna and Rome. Both devices dropped out frequently because the route is riddled with tunnels (that's why the countryside is so beautiful, all those hills) and the wifi doesn't work in tunnels, or canyons. What does seem to work well is the .Italo intranet. Easily available, even in the tunnels, etc., are the pages fed by the .Italo server on the train. Such things as travel information, destination information (that was available in various languages, much like Powerpoint slides), right up to the minute (or 10 minute) news and current affairs, and information about the train and connections, etc. The vast majority of the content is in Italian but because I am reasonable happy in Italian I didn't search out additional English content. I also think that there were childrens' feeds, and I think that the movies (all in Italian) were available from the server as well as in the movie car. I remember pulling my hair out trying to get a code - anywhere - for the Trenitalia Frecciarossas last year and gave up.

Nigel, thank you so much for your valued input. I went ahead and created an account on Italo's website using the address of one of the B&Bs I'll be staying in. Now I'm all linked up :-). Yeah I didn't want to deal with what you did and try to get a password on the spot.