Cell Phone in Italy

Jmiller

Jmiller

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Nebraska USA
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2001 Oldsmobile Aurora 3.5
My family is going to Italy here in a few weeks. We are renting a car from Europecar.it and they can come with a cell phone. We are thinking that if we get this and drop in a prepaid SIM card it would work well. Or is the phone locked to prevent this?

We probably wont need a phone much so would it be cheaper to just buy a cheap GSM phone and then drop in a SIM? Should I buy a phone here in the states on ebay? or wait and grab a phone in Europe. I am looking to do this cheaply.
 
In the UK any street trader "of a certain type" can unlock any phone - probably the same in Italy. Both my Tri Band and quad band phones worked in the US by the way, so not so much of a problem (so long as you have a tri/quad band phone).
 
The last time I got a travel phone, I just walked in to the nearest Vodafone at my destination and bought the cheapest PAYG available. It came with a small amount of free top-up, and I was set. On a side note, it was locked, but they unlocked it for free after a year.
 
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Tesco did it for me before going to the States (Tri Band) but VodaPhone wanted 20.00 GBP (Quad band)! So I left it. In the end I did not get a sim which was my plan - I bought a phone card 20.00 USD a pop and used a land line home.

I did make the odd call from the Mobiles (Cell) phones and they worked fine - from Florida, should be OK the reverse way, if expensive without a new SIM.
 
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Thanks guys for the info. I bid on an unlocked GSM phone on ebay and then will pick up a sim in italy.
 
Bump, New question same subject

What would I be able to walk into a cell shop and buy a cheap Pay as you go phone with like 100 min or so?
 
Yes. Repeating my post above, that's what I did last time I needed a travel phone.
darkshark0159 said:
The last time I got a travel phone, I just walked in to the nearest Vodafone at my destination and bought the cheapest PAYG available. It came with a small amount of free top-up, and I was set.
Click to expand...
 
Your mobile phone provider choices in Italy are TIM, Vodafone, Wind, and 3 (TIM being the largest, 3 being the smallest). Unfortunately, their websites are not nearly as good as British or American providers, but I can tell you from experience how this works.

Before you leave, use Google maps to find the nearest phone vendor to your destination. I did a search for Vodafone around my hotel, and found a shop in walking distance. I'd personally recommend Vodafone just because I have had great experience with them. Anyway, go their upon arriving, and they have the monthly tariffs, and the PAYG/PAYT/Prepaid (just an abbreviation for pay-as-you-go) plans. The PAYG phones are complete freedom, just buy a phone (the cheapest phone the Vodafone UK shop I was last in had was ?15) and it comes with a SIM card. They usually require you to buy some credit/top-up upon buying the phone. When you make calls, a certain amount of money is deducted per minute (ie .22/min). When you run out of credit, enter your credit card details on the phone, and top-up again.

Vodafone Italy tariffs:
http://www.vodafone.it/engl/living/tariff_plans.html

Note that they don't list the cost per minute of international calling. On my VodafoneUK phone, receiving calls from the US is free, but calling out to the US deducts more credit than calls within the UK. I'm not sure how different it is in Italy.
 
Expect calls to the US from an Italian prepaid cell to be ridiculously expensive.
 
I am not really looking to use the phone to call back to the USA just to call inside Italy more than likely. So if I understand you right DarkShark it will cost me about ?15 for a phone and then maybe ?10-15 for some minutes? So I can get a functioning phone for about ?30?
 
Yeah that's right, only you'll be spending ?uros. After making my way through some Italian words, I found out tis for you:

Cheapest Vodafone Italy phone:
171x303_Vodafone231.jpg

Vodafone 231 - 39,00?
The offer includes: Vodafone SIM card with 5 euro unit 'of telephone traffic.

So there you go. Final price: ?39
 
darkshark0159 said:
Yeah that's right, only you'll be spending ?uros. After making my way through some Italian words, I found out tis for you:

Cheapest Vodafone Italy phone:
171x303_Vodafone231.jpg

Vodafone 231 - 39,00?
The offer includes: Vodafone SIM card with 5 euro unit 'of telephone traffic.

So there you go. Final price: ?39
Click to expand...

Thanks! This looks like it will work good.
 
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