Skype, wifi?

Yes, you can use SKYPE with wi-fi in Italy. Most hotels offer either free wi-fi, or a small charge per day. I use Facetime on my Apple products to "call" my kids back home. I also use iMessage for FREE texts while on wi-fi. It's so much more economical to call home now compared to my first trip in 1976!

thanks!

Skyping on my iPhone was so easy with the highly available wifi in Europe. I also liked the instant messaging feature on Skype.

I highly recommend it. My family just returned from 5 week trip and used Skype often to call home or locally. The only caveat is that some hotels or restaurants don't have much bandwidth so Skype may lock up or not connect at all so you may have to look around or pull up a web page to see how faxt it loads. You can use Skype over WiFi to Skype someone at home who has a Skype account and is logged in or you can buy Skype minutes (9 cent/ minute) to dial a regular phone line without video. This is convenient to make local (Europe) calls also. Pros: No cost Skype to Skype using WiFi 9 cent/minute to call land line in US or Europe Cons: Hotel or restaurnt needs good bandwidth to connect or maintain call. Many places lock down your connection speed to allow more people to use the same service at once. I usally opened up a web page and could tell how good it was by how fast it loaded. Many restaurants advertise WiFi but it only if available inside or about 10 feet from the door.
Hotels say they have WiFi in the rooms, but not always or you find yourself hunched over in a corner of the room where there is one spot that has WiFi. In Rome the best reception was sitting on the toilet which made Skype a little akward:)

I think Jon did an excellent summary of Skype in Italy. It is important to remember that Wi-Fi is not as available/good in Italy as it is in other EU countries. Italy severely restricted Wi-Fi for years and has only recently "legalized" it's use. But you will find that your lodging options will generally provide some sort of Wi-Fi....even if you have to sit on the commode to get the best signal! (funny; we just got back form Ireland, and the bathroom was were I always could find decent signal strength......)