Prepaid SIM Italy
 

My daughter is going to study abroad this fall in Italy. Her cell provider is going to provide her with an unlock code for her quad band cell phone. What is a good prepaid sim for her to use. Thanks in advance.

Probably the best rates and use is to buy one there, especially if she's not leaving Italy or at least not for any length of time. Good luck

I would advise you to have a look at this page in this site:
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/italy.html

Just moved the thread to the Europe section
 

Continue the discussion, guys :-)

I've got Vodafone. Good coverage, and you can recharge it over the internet using a foreign credit card for €3, which will keep it going for 11 months, shortly before the end of which you repeat the process. Good if you plan to return. However, if you don't speak Italian, there is no English language option for the voice prompts (something that is true for most of the providers). However, learning Italian is presumably the point of studying abroad, so this probably isn't an issue!

The minimum amount is 5€ since June 10.

I had a TIM card for my trip. It got decent 3G and 2G reception in lots of places (although note that buildings in Rome have very thick walls and sometimes I'd go from 5 bars outside to 0 inside). TIM had a program (detailed on the linked site above) that enabled 500MB of data access per month for €20. What kind of phone does she have? If it will run on 3G networks over there, note that 3G gives faster data and better voice connections, but drains the battery faster.

One more tip. You can purchase a card through a U.S. service such as Telestial, or you can get them directly in Italy. Either way, you'll need to give them a passport and an Italian address so they can register the card. It might take a day or so for all the features to work after arriving in Italy.

Followup prepaid sim italy
 

She has a samsung t809 which is a quad band phone and service thru tmobile here in the US. They said they would provide her with an unlock code for her trip abroad.

I am thinking she will go the Vodafone prepaid route. Any suggestions as to which card will best suit her. She loves to text message versus phone her friends. She will have AIM on her computer thou so that will help with communication as well.

Also, her study abroad wants all the kids to have a cell phone on arrival so I am wondering if I should buy it from telestial before hand. Is it that much more expensive?

Thanks for all your help.

Do remember that with vodafone IT if you make any trip to Europe you can top up with a vodafone voucher from that country while in that country namely an SFR voucher while in France, a vodafone UK voucher while in the UK.....you get the full value doing it this way i believe.

Also I am surprised vodafone IT does not allow voice prompts in English...are you sure about this or is it that the person you bought the sim from didn't know how or want to do it...

I had a TIM card and I was able to set the voice prompts to English but that card was bought in the pre registration period and eventually I was unable to access it as it was not registered and expired before I got back to Italy to deal with it.

Oh thanks for the info. I think she'll be able to understand the prompts enough as she has had two full years of Italian and took a couple more classes this summer. She'll have her minor almost completed by the time she's back in the states. I am more concerned about which Vodafone sim to buy and where she should buy it. Thanks again!

I've been all through the menus on the voice system (and I do understand them, and my wife's a translator of Italian) and have never found an option to change the language to English or anything else. We did buy them at an official store, the only place where you can buy SIMs in Italy. I find the prompt voice altogether too cheery, so I wouldn't mind changing it to anything else...

Do you know if she will be able to get a Vodafone prepaid Sim card or perhaps prepaid Tim Sim at Malpensa airport and what other than an Italian address and passport she will need to register her sim card.

Also, any idea how long this will take? I think it makes economical sense to do it this way rather than order ahead thru telestial but I want her to have cell service as soon as possible of course. Thanks. Hopefully I have hit all the important questions :)

Dont know about all airports but I was unable to buy any kind of SIM at either Naples or Catania Airports.

To get a TIM SIM I had to buy a cheap phone, (40 euros inc. SIM), from an Auchan Superstore, (pronounced Ocean), probably because I was visiting out of the way places. Got a WIND Sim from an authorised dealer in Giarre Sicily. Vodafone seem to have dedicated Vodafone shops, so a web search should find them.

Hope this helps

Richard

Quick followup. I read somewhere on this board or another that text messaging may not work between Tmobile in the US and Vodafone. Can anyone confirm this? Is this true with TIM and/or Wind? I would want her to get whatever is more compatable with our Tmobile Family plan in the US.
Thanks again... I keep thinking I have asked all the necessary questions....

Usually Wind and Tim (+ CoopVoce) are the best choices for international SMS. Vodafone (+UnoMobile) and 3 ITA the worst ones...

Yeah I think I may go with TIM but I am leaning toward buying it here in the US and paying a bit more so she has it when she lands and doesn't have to hassle with finding a store that sells TIM and getting Euro to pay for it unless you know of a store at Malpensa airport that sells TIM or WIND.

An international sms with Tim (and CoopMobile) costs 30 cents, the same price as Vodafone and 3.
The only best choice is Wind (starting from 9 cents to 15 cents).

Don't forget that you can use a "Dialoga International" with Wind :cool:

Cheaper international calls

As you can see on the tariff pages, the international tariffs for calling your home-country from an Italian mobile are rather high, everywhere you live! But there is quite a good solution from Wind. Buy a Wind prepaid card at just 10 euros (with 5 euros of preloaded airtime, and there are often promotions on new activations too), then find a Wind "Dialoga International" prepaid international card. Those cards are not sold at Wind official shops (quite weird, isn't it?), but at newstands (Edicole) and tobacco shops (Tabacchi), but it's not easy to find. You could have more chances at airports and bigger train stations. Once you find them, you can choose between € 5.- and € 10.- value of airtime. For dialing from a Wind mobile phone just dial the toll free number: 800 905 500, enter your code and you are ready to go. Tariffs depend on the country and there are usually higher tariffs for calling a mobile phone (mostly in European countries); there is a complete list, in Italian, here. You can use the Dialoga International card also from landline numbers, public phones and mobile phones of different operators, but the prices are higher, as you can see on the table.
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/italy.html

So I think that Wind can be the best solution for jlbaer1 :beer:

SMS starting from 9 ct. (Wind 9) and calls to US @ 12.5 ct. (Dialoga International)

The only mobile phone shop at Malpensa Airport is a Vodafone one, but it's in the boarding area.

We do have these amazing new things in Europe called "credit cards". (Though I would advise her to have some euros in her pocket before she arrives.) You are better off buying in Italy -- just figure out what you codice fiscale is ahead of time. Again, have a look at http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/italy.html

Any problems with sending or receiving SMS from Europe to the US rest with the US operators, who were very late in adding SMS and making it a viable inter-network option. However, I could have sworn my Italian one worked fine sending to the US. (IMO it can be a problem with too many people stateside who don't know how to respond to a text message. As you will soon discover, this is not an issue in Italy...)

LOL. Yeah, I figured she could potentially buy it with a credit card. The first two words she spoke as a baby were "charge it" but I was more worried about her finding a store to buy the right card in right at the airport. Now I just enabled international calling on her cell so in an emergency she can use that til she picks up a TIM or similar Italian sim card. I think I have all bases covered. Thanks for all your advice people!

Wind
 

Where might she find a place to buy the WIND or TIM card. She arrives at Malpensa and then is taking a train to her study abroad center.

Prepaid International Sim
 

Ok. I talked to my daughter about the various sim cards available and AdreA's comment that Wind may be the best choice but here is the deal. She wants one Sim card and one phone number. She doesn't like the idea of switching out sim cards when she visits say France or Spain. It looks like Vodafone is the only provider in the Malpensa airport. Does vodafone have a sim card that will allow her to call people when she is visiting France for example without paying astronomical roaming costs? Thanks in advance for your reply.

Well the dreams can't be true travelling a lot :lol:
Anyway she wants a one ITALIAN numberi, is it ok?

Vodafone has "Vodafone PAssport": http://www.190.it/engl/working/passport.html

Tim has an interesting promotion "Tim Senza Confini" (100 min for free for incoming calls in UE) and Wind has just applied the new "EuroTariff". So you know (almost) everything, remember that your daughter will have to pay always for international romaing ;-)

Wants, wants, wants. I used to sing a little ditty to my son when he got that way. You might remember it. It goes, "You don't always get what you want. You don't always get what you want, but if you try some time, you just might find, you get what you need." He hated that song.

There are two ways to work the international phone game: 1) easy 2) cheap. You can get cheap or easy. You don't get both. You want easy get a Mobal roaming SIM but it ain't cheap. The cheap side is what we're all about here. Our goal is to be able to find a way to call from anywhere to anywhere for free. Haven't found it yet but that doesn't stop us from looking.

The problem with cheap is that you have to accept a few complexities. If the user is not willing to accept those complexities, he/she can either do without or spend the money for the easy solution.

I love the Rolling Stones. Honestly, I think I am going to let her know what I found out from all you guys and girls and let her figure it out what to buy when she gets there. Mommy isn't going to be around to help her for the next four months. It's time that she figure out a few things on her own. If she goes prepaid, though, my credit card bill won't get racked up. Yay to that!

Hey, the Stones' "Streets of Love" was in a Vodafone Italia commercial when it came out. Hope this helps.