Temporary service in Italy

Temporary service in Italy - help please?

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Dean - 07 May 2006 18:36 GMT

Hi all,

Two family members, who are Verizon Wireless customers here, will be
traveling to Italy in a couple of months. They'd like to have TWO cell
phones which will work in Italy to call between themselves while there.
Ability and economy of calling to the US is not a major issue.

I guess their VZW phones either won't work or will be cost-prohibitive to
use in Italy.

I have a source who may be able to provide me with loaner GSM phones, but
I'd like to make sure we are getting the right ones. What type of GSM do we
need, with what kind of SIMs, and is there a (relatively) dependable cell
service provider there? Anything I can get that works both here and there
without spending an arm and a leg? Any US providers whose service is both
reliable and economically feasible in Italy?

Since they will only be there two weeks, any type of contract is out of the
question. A decent prepaid SIM would probably be perfect.
I just don't know who to get it from, or what kind of phones I need.

Forgive all the questions at once. I read up a lot on US cellular service
and equipment, but having never traveled to Europe, I know next to nothing
about their equipment/service/capabilities.

Someone here who makes occasional trips to Italy probably knows exactly what
we need.

Thank you in advance.

Dean

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Stanley Naimon - 08 May 2006 00:28 GMT

> Hi all,
>
[quoted text clipped - 27 lines]
>
> Dean

You definitely will need UNLOCKED GSM phones with 900 as a min and 900 &
1800. Some US dual band phones will give you 900, but your best bet is
a TRI-BAND phone. If the phone is to be used with Cingular, T-MO or
another US provider, then you could go for a QUAD-Band.

Try www.prepaidgsm.net for advice on Italian National carriers. TIM or
Vodaphone should do you fine if travelling only in Italy. You should be
able to search and find discussions on Italian providers.

Those providers (all European providers) offer "FREE" inbound within
their own country. I write "FREE" because, as you will see when you try
to call these mobile phones from the US, rates for the calling party are
rather high. Example Germany: you can find many services that will
charge 5 cents or less per minute US to a German land line. Same
service will charge 25 cents or more per minute to a German mobile
phone. Europe works on a caller-pays system.

IF (big if) more foreign travel is planned for the future, then you
might opt for some kind of international card with FREE INBOUND in many
countries.

You are right - your current VZW phones will be useless in Italy --
wrong technology. I don't think there are any US providers that offer
reasonable roaming services in Italy. Would be news to me. T-MO POST
PAID charges 99 cents per minute both ways. If you find that
economical, then sign contracts with T-MO. T-MO prepay roaming is said
to be coming, but, if it does come, I cannot imagine the rates would be
lower than what I cite above.

Stan

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LK - 16 May 2006 23:06 GMT

Hi, Dean,

I just got back from visiting Italy for the first time for about 10
days with a couple of friends. We wanted cell phones to use there, so I
bought unlocked GSM triband phones via Ebay (I got the Motorola p280
timeport ... 900/1800/1900 ... because it was inexpensive and highly
rated), and then I also bought a couple of Italian SIM cards (TIM) on
Ebay. Lots of sites will sell these, but they charge up to $80, which
is absurd - check out Ebay. It is nice to have the card when you
arrive, but one of my traveling companions bought a TIM SIM card in
Italy once we arrived at a Central TIM store (people tell you only
Italian residents can buy them, but apparently this is not true) - they
only cost 10 euros and come with 5 euros of talk time. You have to
register with TIM or the card will die after the first recharge. You
can recharge with more time as you go (gas stations, tobacco stores,
TIM stores will all do it for you). You pop in the SIM, make a call
once you're in Italy to activate it, and you're off. If you can
understand a little Italian, call 4916 and change the prompts to
English (I think you press 0, 5, 5, if I recall, and for voicemail, I
think you call 4920 to change the prompts). It was a fabulous deal ...
we got FREE incoming calls, relatively inexpensive calls within Italy,
and we also used an MCI international phone card to call the U.S. (you
can call the Italian 800 access number for FREE) very inexpensively.
It's even cheaper if your family/friends in the U.S. use the MCI card
to call you on the cell in Italy. With a little research, the whole
thing paid off great ! Good luck !

Linda

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