Hello, I currently have Verizon Service in the USA, and I typically purchase their $10 / day global pass when traveling abroad. For those that use your Verizon Phones in Italy, have you experienced good service throughout the country. We will be in the northern parts (Como), Cinque Terre, Tuscany, and Milan. I am trying to decide if purchasing a mobile hot spot at the car rental company would be worth the extra fees.
Thanks
My Verizon service worked well in all of those areas in 2018.
In 2019 I used the Verizon travel pass in those same areas and didn’t have any problems. I plan on using it again in the Amalfi Coast in May.
I know this isn't quite what you are asking...but keep in mind, Verizon does not actually have service in Italy. (Neither do AT&T and T-Mobile.) They all just have roaming agreements with the Italian mobile companies like TIM or Vodafone. So your Verizon reception depends on how good their mobile partner's reception is. (TIM and Vodofone have good reputations. I've roamed on Vodafone in Italy and have had great reception everywhere I've been in Italy. TIM is good too.)
If you're going to pay the $10/day fee to use your Verizon phone in Italy anyway, what's the point in getting a hotspot too? You can use your Verizon phone as a hotspot. I don't recall how much data you get with Verizon's roaming options, but if you avoid streaming videos, you should have plenty of data for your trip, I'd say. (Videos eat up a lot of data quickly.)
Are Verizon's phones unlocked?
If you purchased an Italian SIM and used your smartphone as an hotspot you'd pay 30 Euro for 30 days. This way everybody in your group would have internet access, while you could make and receive calls from Italian numbers for free.
How much would you pay for the hotspot by the car hire company?
Thank you all for the information. This is very helpful.
I used the Verizon travel pass without issue for two weeks last June, covering a lot of ground on the Village Italy tour. When my husband and I were in Venice, Bologna, Lucca and Milan in the fall, I rented a pocket WiFi from WiTourist, which also worked well, was easy and was cheaper than two travel passes x 14 days. We’ve done that several times over the years for ease of mind while wandering (i.e. being able to check maps, etc.) without running up a big Verizon bill.
We just got back from 2 weeks in Italy. I also have Verizon with the international plan but don't want to pay the $10/day, so I tried an esim for data only, it worked great.
Here's the article I used as reference https://abrokenbackpack.com/best-europe-esim-providers/#Airalo_eSIM_Eurolink_Plan
I went with BNESIM but search the forum for other esim discussions to get others' opinions. It might be worth trying for at least some of your group.
Thank you all again for your suggestions.
When I was in Italy in S-O 2022, we had T-mobile. I was expecting to find cafes and restaurants with open public WiFi. I did not find this much. Compared to 2019 in Hungary, Greece, Croatia, Romania, public wifi outside of the hotel was much less available to the point of not being a strategy. Instead, I had the T-mobile roving hot-spot device ($10/M). This worked well, to the point where we could turn it on and get service as we walked about. There were spots where service was not available.
The reason I have been given by Italian participants here (Roberto, Dario) is that the wifi available in Italy with local providers for pay is so cheap and popular that free wifi in cafes/ restaurants is no longer being done.
Goes to show that the situation with this area changes quickly.
