cell phone in italy

The answers to your telephone questions will depend on you needs. 1. Will you need to be easily accessible from the US? 2. If yes, will the people calling you from the US just be a few people (whom you can teach any needed "tricks" before you leave) or will it be the general public, whom you won't be able to "tutor"? 3. Will texts back and forth suffice (at least part of the time)? 4. If people are calling you from the US, will they be able to text or dial an international number (and pay the accompanying charges), or do they want to use a US number? 5. If you are getting calls from the US, will the people in the US need to know your number before you leave, or could you e-mail or text it once you arrive? 6. Will you want to make calls to the US? If yes, just a few minutes, or longer calls? 7. Will you need to be reachable at all times, or only at pre-arranged times? 6. Are you traveling with others, and do you want to be able to reach your traveling companions? 7. Will you be calling local Italian numbers (hotels, restaurants, taxis)? Will you want to be receiving local calls? 8. What is your current US carrier and what are your current cell phone models? Does it work in Europe (with a higher fee, of course)?
9. Are you looking for voice and text only, or did you also want data (web browsing, e-mailing, apps)? Renting a phone is almost always the most expensive option, and rarely a good choice. The others all have their place, depending on your situation. Having a cell phone isn't always the best solution - for some, Skype, e-mail or phone cards are sufficient. Give us details, and we can give you the best options. And it's called a SIM (subscriber identity module) - the "brain" of the phone.

Harold, thank you for your detailed reply. Here are the answers to your questions: We will be needing the phone only for short calls to and from the US just to family members. We would be able to text the number to them upon our arrival. I would like to be reachable at all times, not just prearranged times. There will be others traveling in Italy whom we will need to contact. We would also like to make local calls to restaurants and hotels. The phone carrier is Verizon, I have not yet checked to see if the phone works in Europe.
We will only need text and voice, no email or web browsing. Thanks again for your help.

Italy and the rest of Europe uses a system called GSM; AT&T and T-Mobile use this system in America. It requires a SIM. Verizon uses a system called CDMA, which does not use SIMs. Some of their phones are "World Phones" and do have SIMs; you can check if yours does (but if you don't already know, it probably doesn't). You can get a loaner phone from Verizon that will work in Italy, but it will be locked to their prices, which are not cheap; you pay a high rate per minute and text, for both making and receiving calls. If you're only making a few calls, if you can rely mostly on text, and/or if the steps required to buy and use an Italian phone seem daunting, it's a good option. Your other good bet is to get Italian SIMs in Italy (much cheaper than getting them in advance in the US). You will need phones that they will work in. You can either buy a phone plus SIM in Italy (similar to the "GO Phones" or "throwaway phones" sold in the US) or buy phones before your trip (from Ebay or other places). This way, your calls to each other and local numbers are cheap, your calls back to the US are cheap, and texts (sending and receiving) are even cheaper. And, your US people can text you, and you can call them back (calling an Italian cell from the US is pricey - more costly than calling an Italian land line from the US). The other problem is you will have an Italian number; your callers have to be able to use this (but it's easy to text them, and just have them use "reply" to reach you). continued..

continued.. There are multiple Italian cell phone companies. I used Wind with the Senza Scatto plan, but others use TIM or other carriers. Here's a list of what's available and the prices, if you're as compulsive as I am about doing price research: http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/italy.php I brought the codice fiscale (explained at the bottom of the linked page) and my passport to the phone store, and got the SIM. It then took less than an hour to be activated, and a few more hours for the international discount plan to be activated (I had to text something and wait for a response). I already had an unlocked quad band phone, so it worked with the Italian SIM. If you're buying a phone here, make sure the phone has the European bands you need (900 and 1800); if buying in Italy, they all will. A phone with only North American bands (850 and 1900) will not work in Europe. And a locked phone will only accept SIMs from its original company. If you have a friend who has an old "dumbphone" from AT&T or T-Mobile that they're no longer using, and it's quadband (for example, RAZRs are quadband), they may be able to get it unlocked for you, and you can borrow it for Italy. Ron In Rome has a post about buying phones and SIMs in the Rome airport - check his website (I got mine in Venice, near the Rialto). I know - clear as mud. Ask if you have further questions.

Fun fact, after all that technical detail: the Italian term for a cell phone is "telefonino." Cute, no?

Telefonino...yes, cute! Thanks for all the info, I will take some time to digest/research it. I appreciate you taking the time to explain.

Susan, I have T-Mobile. I purchased a pre-pay SIM card from TIM (I believe this stands for Telecom Italia Mobile) when I got to the airport in Rome. I paid for call, text and data, I could never get the data to work, and they could't explain to me why it didn't work. They speak Italian and I speak English and Spanish. No matter how much I tried a in-depth conversation on why it didn't work, was impossible. Unless you have an iphone, their phones were so different than ours at the time, that I don't think their data worked with my T-Mobile 3g slide. You can find TIM kiosks and stores all over Italy. If you plan to go this route and you have a GSM phone, don't forget to ask your cell provider to unlock your phone. I believe that if you have a Verizon dual band phone, Verizon won't unlock the phone until your plan has been active for at least three months.

Susan, I have T-Mobile. I purchased a pre-pay SIM card from TIM (I believe this stands for Telecom Italia Mobile) when I got to the airport in Rome. I paid for call, text and data, I could never get the data to work, and they could't explain to me why it didn't work. They speak Italian and I speak English and Spanish. No matter how much I tried a in-depth conversation on why it didn't work, was impossible. Unless you have an iphone, their phones were so different than ours at the time, that I don't think their data worked with my T-Mobile 3g slide. You can find TIM kiosks and stores all over Italy. If you plan to go this route and you have a GSM phone, don't forget to ask your cell provider to unlock your phone. I believe that if you have a Verizon dual band phone, Verizon won't unlock the phone until your plan has been active for at least three months.

Susan, why didn't you post this on The Boot, Travelers Helpline?

Miguel, I started to go there but went to transportation about another question, then didn't switch over to the boot. My error.

Harold has done a pretty good job of laying out the options for you, but let me throw in this scenario: Get a loaner phone from Verizon but keep it just for emergency calls from home. Tell friends and relatives to send a text if they want to talk. Then get a prepaid phone card over there and use a pay phone to call home or get an Internet device (laptop, tablet, smartphone) that can connect to wifi and call using Skype. You can get a prepaid calling card in the U.S., too. To reach others traveling at the same time, I'd suggest using text messages to communicate. You can also consider using one of the travel phone companies which will provide you with a phone and SIM or just a SIM before you go. The costs are likely less than Verizon (although you have to figure in the initial start-up cost), but they aren't necessarily cheap. One advantage: Some of the plans give you a local, U.S.-based number that will forward calls to the foreign number (often based out of the U.K.) that they will assign to you. This is an extra cost, though. How long is your trip? For short trips, the simple solution is often the best, even if it is more costly. For example, a Verizon loaner phone could be used to do everything so long as you kept all calls, local and back to the U.S., very, very short and prepared yourself for a bill based on calls at $1.30 a minute (or thereabouts).

Snoop around the Helpline a bit; there must be approx. 598 threads about European cell phones current right now ;-) My horse in the race is EuroBuzz...$29 for a phone AND SIM. The rest of my answer is on the 598 threads...