In my personal experience tethering works without any kind of problems.
Whatever you're right: it's a bit difficult for tourists and maybe they would have a more "relaxed" plan.

Hello. So I'm in Venice now. I bought a TIM sim for my iPhone. Everything is fine except i was told I cannot get the 1gb,5gb or unlimited I can only get the 250meg/week. That's not going to work. So I also ended up going back the the tim store and bought another sim, told them it was going to be used in a pc.
I waited about 20mins popped it into my iPhone and it works perfect!!!!
My question now, how do I check my data usage. Is there an SMS I can send? Also, does anyone know if I'll have any problems doing what I've done?

Internet Mobile TIM <--- here you can see your data usage. Remember that you have to access this website from your sim. Otherwise, you can register your sim online at 119.it and get all the details about your sim from any PC.

EDIT: Double post.

Perfect! Exactly what I needed. 119.it worked.

Another question: if I need to, can I upgrade to the 5gb plan? If so, how?

You have to deactivate your current offer from 119.it and subscribe online Internet 5GB (here: Internet 5GB per Tablet - TIM - you don't need a tablet, despite the name. Just click on "Acquista" and go ahead)

Wow! Thank you! I actually called 119. The very nice lady spoke great English! She was able to convert my 2 "smartphone" plans to tablet plans. Now I have plenty of data and so does my wife.
I'm able to make excellent VoIP calls using my sip server back home. No delay.
Tim has very fast Internet compared to the us!

Thank you everyone for all the help!
Now we are off to explore Florence!!

Hi!

I'm spending July around the city of Brescia area.
My necessities are:
- approx. 2-3 gb of data/month
- cheap/"unlimited" calls and/or SMS to one number on the same network (not obligatory because usage of WhatsApp or similar messenger in daily communication is an option)

First I thought about TIM to avoid hassle of possible roaming using 3
But how about 3 if they offer free first month of 3 GB of internet as well as "Insieme" and "Gente di 3" plans for communicating with another 3 number.

How about 3 coverage in Brescia? (homepage states that its fine) Maybe somebody has same personal experience? Most time will be spent in city with limited traveling around so my guess is that there is small chance for the need of roaming.

Or should I still stick with TIM?

3 is surely good, but consider that the 3GB option can be used on the phone only and not for tethering or on your computer.