cellphones/SIM cards

Hi Judy - I was just about to purchase an unlocked Blackberry quad-band phone on eBay. Did you get the indication that it was the phone's fault, or do you think it was the service? Also, was the SIM card sufficient, or was there a need to purchase some type of data plan as well since it's a Blackberry? Were you able to use Blackberry messenger (if you tried)?
Thanks!

Were these numbers already in your phone book? Were they US numbers? Did you have country code info and dial the international code numbers to get them? My first thought was that your phone tried to call the number as it was in you phone book and was not smart enough to know that it was in a different country.

Thanks, Nadine and Monique! The Blackberry was blank - no numbers in the phone book except for the Italian numbers that I entered; I was able to call them using the hotel phone and a telephone card. I intended to use the Blackberry just for calls within Italy. To use the Messenger function or email I would have been quite expensive for me. The phone did function, occasionally, so I feel that my problems had to do with the SIM card. I'm glad I didn't have to depend on it in an emergency. From what I've read on this site, others have had reliable cellphone service... I'm baffled, perhaps I was expecting too much.

Judy, It's difficult to say why you had so many problems with the phone, but one possible explanation is that the dialing sequence wasn't correct for the destination number in each case. Perhaps the calling plan that you were using had restrictions? Which of these calling plans were you using: www.wind.it/it/opzioni/index.phtml?sHp2=4068 It doesn't seem logical that some calls would go through and others wouldn't, so these are the only things that come to mind. I've been travelling with a quad-band GSM phone for years, with no problems at all. Until last year I used roaming with my home network but that's become a bit expensive so I tried one of the "travel phone" SIM's on my trip last year. It worked extremely well in Italy, Greece, Switzerland, France and Germany. I had no problems with calls "in country" or back to Canada, and no problems with texts to family at home. The SIM I was using was based on a UK network. I'll be using the same service again this year. If you decide to travel with the Blackberry on your next trip, you might consider a SIM from one of these firms. Check the websites for Roam Simple, Call In Europe, Cellular Abroad, Telestial or Mobal for details and prices. Cheers!

I bought an unlocked Motorola v190 on Ebay for $17 and bought a TIM card in Milan for 10 Euros including 5 euros of talk time. Worked flawlessly in Italy. Easy Breezy. I think it might be that your blackberry is a smart phone. I'm just guessing, of course. We know that data plans for temporary use are very expensive in Italy. I would recommend to anyone reading this to keep it simple. Don't use a smartphone.

Ciao Ken,
Unfortunately I couldn't find the plan that I bought and couldn't access my account with the numbers that I have. I think I'll try one of the companies that you mentioned the next time that I go! I do have to say that I find a few illogical practices in Italy... I have trouble with "technology" in my home country much less abroad. A new field to study! Thanks for your suggestions.

I have a cheap Virgin phone I use in Britain. In Italy and Greece I use a Vodafone I purchased in Venice. When I got to Greece I went to the Vodafone store and purchased a new SIM card for Greece. Both phones were cheap and easy to use and I now have a Virgin phone for Britain and Vodafone for the rest of Europe. Total cost was about 50 euro plus call time. I lend them to friends when they go to Europe, too. Totally worth it!

I have a cheap Virgin phone I use in Britain. In Italy and Greece I use a Vodafone I purchased in Venice. When I got to Greece I went to the Vodafone store and purchased a new SIM card for Greece. Both phones were cheap and easy to use and I now have a Virgin phone for Britain and Vodafone for the rest of Europe. Total cost was about 50 euro plus call time. I lend them to friends when they go to Europe, too. Totally worth it!

I bought a TIM phone for 29 euro, when I landed in Milano and paid for additional minutes. It worked out fine, I was able to call the US for a reasonable fee as well.

Hard to tell without more details. What, exactly, did you dial on the phone for your Italian numbers? We got back from Italy in July, where we bought a TIM SIM in an unlocked Nokia and it worked fine -- once we had it set up on the right plan. The first store didn't get it right and we had to go back. Did you make sure you had enough pre-paid credit?

I dialed the same numbers that worked when I used a phone card and the phone in the hotel room... and I still have credit on the SIM card. Thanks for all the help and suggestions, everyone!

One suggestion: dial the full international number (that is, dial +39 and then the number for Italian calls). I have no idea why this works, but I have had intermittent dialing problems and it seems to help. A friend from the UK with a Blackberry visiting us here in SF bought a US prepaid SIM card and had similar problems until he started doing this. For example, the Hotel Brunelleschi in Florence would be: +3905527370 Regular dialing from a land line would be 05527370 Another thought: Wind has far less coverage and a much smaller network than TIM, so maybe the network was maxed out. If the network can't complete your call, you'll get a message like that. When using our AT&T SIM card, occasionally we'd get strange things when roaming on the Wind network, such as "wrong number" messages in French -- when we were not dialing French numbers. We redialed and the problem went away.