Phone chips for calls in Italy to Italy hotels

Primo di tutto (First of all), in order for your USA phone to work in Italy it must be have global capacity and a simm card. My personal cell phone from Verizon is a global gsm, quad band phone and they gave me the simm card. You can also rent a global phone from Verizon. The cost of using a USA phone in Italy is expensive per minute. You can purchase a $4.99 per month service which makes the cost .99 cents per minute. Last year I bought an unlocked, quad band, gsm phone on eBay and then I bought a simm card from TIM at Stazione Termini in Roma for 10 euro. The cost of making calls with the Italian simm card is about .08 euro per minute. Buon viaggio,

If you aren't going for long and if you don't plan on making or receiving many calls, the easiest course is to stick with a U.S. carrier - AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon work, although as already described, Verizon requires a few extra steps. You must have a phone that has the correct radio frequencies to work in Europe and your local carrier has to set your account to make calls internationally. (You can get one from ebay or tigerdirect.com if you don't have one.) The calls aren't cheap (a buck or more a minute), but this is the easiest solution. Alternatives: Get a local SIM card (and possibly phone) when you arrive. Cheap local calls. Maybe okay rates for calls to U.S. Get a travel phone company SIM (Telestial, Mobal, and about a dozen others). Cheaper rates than your home carrier, but this fact depends on the number of calls you make because most of these providers charge an initial up-front fee.

Thanks to everyone. But, I remembered but not remembering a time I bought a chip or sim card that went into my phone for long distance international calls....hoped someone would know...hmmmm.... And it was decent....oh well...thanks still:)

Monique, I will bet you that what you had was a SIM card from one of the travel phone companies. Check them out. One might be familiar. (In alphabetical order:) brightroam callineurope cellomobile cellularabroad ekit eurobuzz fonerent gosim mobal onesimcard rangeroamer roamsimple telestial Some are better than others. This isn't a complete list, too.

Monique, It would help if you could provide information on which cell network you're currently with and whether your phone is quad-band and unlocked? Also, are you planning to use this for occasional calls, mostly texting or ? Some additional information would be helpful.....