Costs and Fees

The Internet service costs and fees panorama in Italy is extremely varied and continually changing.

In almost all cases, the ISPs (Internet Service Providers) offer PSNT and ISDN connections free of charge: all that is required is to fill in a form with one's personal data, select a Login (user name), a password, and an e-mail address, and in just a few minutes the user is online. The only cost is the phone call to the provider (dial-up connection), calculated on the basis of the time spent on the web. Each telephone company has its own fee schedules and offers different discounts and special packages. Generally, flat rate plans are also available. The cost varies from company to company: the user selects a telephone number (in this case the number of the ISP) and pays a flat rate for all calls to that number, with no limitation on duration.

Fee scheduling is different in the case of the 24-hours-a-day ADSL and HDSL connections (which are permanent; that is, not dial-up). The user pays an initial cost for the subscription and for activating the service, and a periodic (generally monthly) fee, which may be flat or may vary according to the volume of "traffic" over the line. In this case as well, the providers' offers are many and varied and in continual flux.

For cable Internet connections, given the relatively low number of Italian cities that have laid fiber-optics cables and since access to Internet is only one of the many services that exploit this transmission technology, the panorama of costs and fees is neither well-defined nor, generally, even established.

For satellite connections, besides the initial cost of the kit and a service activation fee, the user generally pays a periodic fee that will differ according to the type of contract stipulated with the provider company (guaranteed minimum bandwidth, types of services provided, etc.). Recently, companies new to the market (e.g., Netsystem) offer satellite return Internet connections (with no guaranteed minimum bandwidth) free-of-charge upon purchase of the access kit. But although navigation is completely free-of-charge, since the connection is one-way, the user is still obliged to activate a phone Internet connection.

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