I just wanted to update the group on my experience with travel to Rome now that I'm home.
I went with two TIM SIMs purchased in Termini because the SmartPhone store in T3 at Fiumicino was out of business. I tried the first SmartPhone store in Termini down by platform 28 and they said they do not sell data SIMs. Based on similar responses, I think I should have dropped the word "data" from my question and just asked for a TIM SIM card.
If you are unfamiliar with Termini, the main part of the station is quite a ways from the point where the Leonardo Express entered the station. The last time I was in Termini in 2000 this train from FCO came all the way into the station but there seems to be some construction so your trip may be different. Regardless, there is a TIM store upstairs (across from the big boards that show train status) in Termini and a Wind store on the first floor. I can't remember the compass direction or street for the Wind location, but if the trains are to your back when you are the main terminal, go all the way to your right and Wind is on your right before you exit the terminal.
My experience with TIM was not that good. The initial problem was that I don't speak very good Italian even thought the clerk's English was certainly better than my Italian. It was somewhat annoying that he spoke very good English to the pretty blonde in line in front of me but suddenly had difficulty when it was my turn. The real problem was that the clerk I was dealing with insisted that to get the Internet Senza Limiti 10 gig plan I would have to buy "the stick" meaning the USB GSM attachment. Instead he put me on the TIMxSmartphone 250mb/week plan as part of the TIM CARD International Limited voice plan. I did have my Codice Fiscale (spelling) but was never asked for one. When I eventually looked online, they must have calculated one for me because it was filled in in my account profile on
119.it.
I guess they put me on the international calling plan because of my foreign passport. After going through 200mb in the first day (email, FaceBook, and lots of Google Maps), I bought a 10€ and a 20€ pre-paid card and added the credit to my account through an SMS to 40916 of "RIC" followed by a space and the number under the gray scratch off on the card. I received confirmation on both refills and then sent another text to 40916 with the message "PRO INTERNETSENZALIMITI". I received confirmation via text message of the activation and checked my credit with txt to 40916 of "credito" confirming the deduction of 24€ with 5€ activation.
The next day I received a txt that indicated that I had exceeded the 250mb of download and would be charged 0.05 centEuro/KB and became worried. I went into a TIM store and was told that I had to go back to Termini so they could fix their error and I insisted that I was not going to go back to Termini. The girl at the TIM store questioned how I could have gone through 250mb in two days. I remained calm and explained I was on vacation, I was uploading photos, sending email, and using Google Maps. She told me that there was a problem with the International calling plan and the Internet Senza Limiti plan and that they were not compatible. She said I would have to wait till tomorrow to check again. At this point I was just about convinced that I was going to go to the next Wind store and get their data option but in the mean time I was goign to burn out the rest of my 4.90€ credit.
Over the next day I used 300mb of data and did not see any decrease in my credit (txt credito to 40916, the online
119.it balance lags behind actual use in my experience). I sent a text message to my wife to intentionally cause a charge against my credit and that deduction was immediately noted on the txt to 40916. So, it seems that the 10GB plan was active.
I deactivated the Smartphone plan with a text to 40916 of TIMSMART OFF and PRO TIMSMART OFF and both resulted in a response that said basically this was not a valid command. I did deactivate the plan online however.
At this point, since my wife was still on the 250mb plan, I activated my wifi hotspot and deactivated her mobile data so that she was using my 10GB bucket of data. I didn't really feel bad about this because I was not going to use anywhere near the whole amount of data in the week I was there but didn't want to deal with the problem of having to refill again.
So, my lessons learned.
- Write down, in Italian, exactly what you want to purchase before arriving in Rome. May be Effendi could put together an script or something?
- Try to get just a plain old local calling only SIM.
- Use Wind next time.
If you have an android phone, use Google Voice to txt since it uses data and is thus included in the data plan you choose. I use Google Voice exclusively here in the US so people were not confused and I continued to be able to send/receive text messages from my local US number. If you use the Messaging app, you will be sending text messages from your Italian number. When you send/receive text messages to TIM, you MUST use the Android Messaging application because these messages have to come from your Italian phone number but they are free to TIM. I might even consider buying my SIM ahead of time if I go back. I would be happy to answer any other questions if you have them while this trip is still fresh in my mind.