Calling within Italy

This is always a sort of guess-work since different carriers, and different plans within those carriers, with different model phones, across international borders, leads to lots of possibilities.

I would think if your phone can make international calls, and they can receive international calls, you should be fine. If your friends have US phones, and you call their US phone number from Italy, I would think your call would go through the US carrier to contact their phones as an international call.

When I'm in Italy and want to connect with fellow Americans in Italy, I send them a text message. Text messages work great for making connections with fellow travelers.

As a Plan B, you might pre-arrange with them to check their e-mail or something. If your phone doesn't work you might have to contact them that way.

I had a RAZR phone that was through AT&T and it is internation capable ("tri-band" or "quad-band"). I simply called my carrier and told them I was going to Italy and asked if my phone would work OK over there and if I had to do anything different. The only thing I had to do was, when I called an Italian number, I had to dial + first; you do that by pressing and holding the number zero for a few seconds. Then I dialed 39, then the number. To dial American phone numbers, if I recall, I dialed 001, then the area code, then the number. So if the number was (area code 123) 456-7890, you would dial 001-123-456-7890. that's what I recall; I would look it up in Rick's Italy book; near the back is a part on phoning while in Italy. also contact your carrier and make sure your phone will work there and what the prices are. You may be wise to stick to texting as much as possible as rates to talk will be over $1 per minute.
this is all based on recollection; double check on this to make sure it's right! And, have a great time! =-)

I have service with Verizon and will be in a similar situation. Our friends, also have Verizon. We were able to get a world phone, which has a sim card allowing access to call all over the world, so long as there are signals, luckily, Verizon does not charge for this. However, the price of the call placed out or coming in, is $ 1.29 per minute. If you text, outgoing is only .50 cents and incoming .05 cents. Each of the couples we are traveling with are attempting to have one phone between them to use so that we can contact eachother to meet, etc. (we are not staying together). Another idea is to get a pre paid phone, and services do have these available, contact your provider. They will mail you a phone, with so many minutes of usage, there is a fixed fee, or you can add on to the sim card. Call your provider, and they will help you with this. There is usually a 3 week limit on this service. Have a great trip!

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Luis,

It would help to know which cell network you're with, as you won't be able to call your friends if you have a phone that doesn't work in Europe?

If your Phone is with Verizon or Sprint it won't work in Europe unless you have one of the "world" models. If you're with AT&T or T-Mobile, you'll also have to ensure that your phone is a quad-band model. If it only has the two North American frequencies, it won't work in Europe. Finally, you'll need to check the Phone Charger to ensure this is designed for "world" operation (100-240 VAC).

I'm assuming from your post that your friends will be travelling with U.S. GSM cell phones. You can certainly call them from within Italy, however a Pay Phone is probably not the best idea as you'll likely be calling long distance back to the U.S. The call will then be routed back to their phones in Italy.

Cheers!