Cell phone service

Lorrie,

We had many of the same questions when my wife and I last visited Italy a couple years ago.
We opted for a travel rider on our Verizon plan. Big mistake. We spent a fortune and got very little use out of it.

If you buy a disposable phone in Italy, you can set its language to English just as when you set up your phone stateside. If you could buy the phone before you travel, could you forward any incoming calls to your real phone to the temporary phone?

If you buy an Italian Simm card, your number changes. People calling your stateside number will get a ring and then your VM message

I am in the process of addressing these issues for a Fall trip to Italy.

Good luck to both of us

Pat

To use your phone with an Italian SIM card, your phone must be unlocked. Check with your provider to see if it is or can be. If you’ve had it for some time, that shouldn’t be a problem. The Moto G (isn’t it a Motorola phone?) is a quad band phone so it should work in Europe with no problem.

When you install the SIM card, it will provide a new Italian telephone number. If you have used your US number as a contact point, once you get your new number, you could email your reservations and air ticket contacts with your new number. If you provided them with your email address, that shouldn’t be necessary.

When you get to Italy, I would suggest getting a TIM Tourist SIM card. Service is €20 and SIM costs €10 for €30 total. You’ll find TIM stores all over Italy. If you are landing at FCO, there’s a TIM store as you are approaching the exit in Terminal 3.

Yes, Moto G is a Motorola phone. You are right. With the Tourist Sim card am I still charged $1/minute?
Thanks for your help, Lorrie

A new SIM card = a new provider = a new phone number = a different set of charges.

The SIM card is like the phone socket you plug your home phone in to. If you have an unlocked phone, you don't need a new phone, just a new SIM card.
It is not the phone that defines your phone number it is the SIM card.

The charging rate will be whatever your new Italian service provider says. You need to find this out before you buy. And it will be a number of €/minute, not $.
You also need to know how to top up your balance via the internet. Ask before you buy.

"1) If I buy a disposal phone in Italy, what happens to my USA phone number that all my reservations and plane ticket are associated with? What do I do about the fact I have listed my US phone number as my contact number.

If you buy an Italian phone, nothing at all happens to your US phone. However, your new Italian phone will have an Italian phone number. If your US phone doesn't work in Italy, you will need to let people know your new Italian phone number (you can e-mail or text it to them).

2) If I buy an Italian Sim card, same question, what happens to my US phone number connected to all my reservations?

IF your phone is unlocked, when you put an Italian SIM card in it, it becomes an Italian phone (same as if you bought the phone and SIM in Italy). It will keep all of your contacts, apps, etc, but will have an Italian phone number and cell phone plan.

In either of these situations (Italian phone with Italian SIM or US phone with Italian SIM), you will not be able to receive calls to your US number, unless you figure out how to forward them. And if you call someone, their caller ID will show your Italian number.

"Plus I am being charged $1 /minute for calls and I don't know how much per text."

What you are being charged for calls, texts, and data with an Italian phone depends on the terms of the EXACT plan your purchased. Just like in the US, there are dozens of plan options, and the options change all the time. It won't be $1 a minute or anything like that - that's what it costs to use a US phone in Italy IF it works and IF you don't buy a travel plan for the US phone. Since you said your phone won't work in Italy at all, this doesn't apply to you. A more typical fee is €0.10 - 0.15 per text, and €0.15 per minute per call; often these days, you can get a visitor plan that includes, say, 200 minutes of calls plus a bundle of data.

"3) I can order a phone that comes with a UK phone number, but it seems expensive for 2 weeks, & doesn't use my US number"

Correct. If you only want a phone for Italy, it makes sense to get an Italian phone, not a UK one.

"4) Lastly, is my phone going to start speaking Italian to me and text in Italian? I perceive that as a potential problem due to my own ignorance of the language."

When you buy the phone, have the salesperson change both the phone language and the voice mail language to English. However, you may still get texts from the phone company in English. Have someone who understands Italian look at them - many of them will be promotional ("text 333 now to 4444 to get new ring tones for only €5!"), but some will be useful ("you only have €1 of credit left - refill now to avoid having your calls cut off"). If you can figure out how to copy the text and paste it into Google Translate, you can use that to see if the text is important or not.

And finally, no it's not easy! It's not just you - it's a confusing subject and changes all the time. Furthermore, everyone's needs and wants are different, so there is no "one size fits all" answer.

The question is, will your old Moto G work well in Europe? There are different versions of the Moto G. My old Moto E 2nd gen that worked great on T-Mobile at home worked only on slow 2G data networks in Europe. (I wound up buying the international version of the Moto E2 which worked great over there.) You will want to make sure your Moto G supports AT LEAST 3G data networks (UMTS 900MHZ and 1800MHZ I think, not just GSM 900/1800). If so, you should have at least 3G. Check the frequencycheck.com website for that info.

In addition to Andrew's point about frequencies (important), even more important is, is your phone locked or unlocked?

Locked phones only work with a SIM card from one provider (in this case, Cricket). Unlocked phones will work with any SIM card, although how well they work and at what speeds is determined by the frequencies each phone has, as Andrew said.

How to determine if the phone is locked:

1) Ask Cricket; they should be able to tell you, and if it's locked and fully paid off, they should be able to give you an unlock code.

2) Try putting in a SIM card from another carrier (AT&T, T-Mobile, Metro PCS, etc). If the phone boots up and starts searching for a network, it is unlocked (even if it doesn't find a network). If the phone, almost immediately, says "Enter SIM PIN 2" or otherwise asks for a code, and refuses to go any further, it's locked.

If your phone is locked and you can't get it unlocked, you will need to buy a new unlocked phone in the US, or a buy a phone in Italy. Some advantages of buying the phone here are that you can use it when you get back, and you can program in all your phone numbers and load all your apps (saving time in Italy), and you can learn how to use it before your trip (also saving time and aggravation).

2) Try putting in a SIM card from another carrier (AT&T, T-Mobile, Metro PCS, etc). If the phone boots up and starts searching for a network, it is unlocked (even if it doesn't find a network). If the phone, almost immediately, says "Enter SIM PIN 2" or otherwise asks for a code, and refuses to go any further, it's locked.

Yes, it is important to make sure the phone isn't locked...but an important distinction: you must use a SIM card that is NOT on the AT&T network! Cricket is AT&T - so an AT&T SIM would not be a good way to test it whether it is locked, because the AT&T SIM should work just fine in a Cricket phone, even if it is locked. A T-Mobile or MetroPCS (owned by T-Mobile) SIM would be a better choice, because they don't use AT&T's network.

A Lycamobile SIM card would be a good choice to see if an AT&T/Cricket phone is truly unlocked. (Lycamobile uses the T-Mobile network in the US.) I bought a Lycamobile SIM on Amazon for 1 cent (free shipping) just to have a SIM for this purpose. You don't need to activate service to insert the SIM into a phone to see if is locked.

Lorrie,

One other option that may work would be to use a SIM from one of the travel phone firms such as iRoam. That way you could obtain and test the SIM well in advance of your trip, and make sure everything is working. Their SIM works not only in Europe but also in the U.S. and Canada.

If you're able to call forward your Cricket phone to the travel number, that should allow you to still receive calls from your home number. Of course, be sure to mention to your contacts that you'll be travelling, and make sure they're aware of the time difference. There's nothing more annoying than getting calls at 03:00 from some moron that forgot to check the time.

Give them a call on their toll free number and see if this might work for you.