Dialing
 

My daughter just called from her new Italian sim. The number is 12 digits long starting with 39. How do I dial that from my US Tmobile phone? Sorry if this is an incredibly stupid question. Have a great day!

Hi,
you dial
01139.......

there are no stupid questions - only stupid answers :)

Chris

Dialing
 

Thanks very much! :)

Here's an example of a stupid answer: "Use the Plus key on your key pad. i.e. dial +39...."

Seriously though I did know someone who only made international calls on his mobile as his landline phone had no plus key! (and he had figured out how to programme the plus into a number on his mobile) :)

Yep, the plus is better, because you can use it on all the numbers in your SIM and it will always dial the number correctly. 011 is not used outside North America as an international code, so any number you program with that at the front won't work if the phone is used, say, in Europe. You can add the plus (and the country code 1) to all your US numbers as well; for example +12125551212.

Having said that, you'd probably be better off getting a calling card to use from your TMO number. CheapPhoneCards.com has a couple of them (usually described as pinless or clean) that can be set to recognize one or more numbers you are calling from, so you only have to enter the PIN once; after that you get a prompt for the number you'd like to call. It's a LOT cheaper; typically around 18-22 cents per minute to a mobile number in Europe (and 4-5 cents to a landline, so if you can get her to find one she can be called at it would be to your benefit). Of course you still have to pay for TMO airtime, though you can use these cards from a landline as well (generally to an 800 number). I've had one of them since 2005 and it hasn't expired yet (despite claiming 365 day validity).

Thanks for all the input. One question though, Motel 75, if I call her at her Italian sim her incoming calls are free. That is why she got that one. She thinks her outgoing to the United States are like .09 + .16 but I told her I think it's more like .50 per minute all said and done when I look at this forum. I emailed her to see which WIND card she ended picking up.

Unfortunately for me when I call her from my Tmobile number I pay .99 per minute. But I do recall reading something on the net that said if you call those Italian sim cards from a calling card then they get charged like 39 cents a minute instead of the incoming being free. I guess we'd be ahead on our end but she would end up going thru her card faster. It seems like you either pay now or pay later.

I don't think the Italian SIM will ever be charged for incoming calls while in Italy, no matter how you call them. You might want to have your daughter look for one of the Wind Dialoga International (sp?) long distance cards. I've looked for them without luck but if she finds one she can make international calls much cheaper.

Incoming calls are ALWAYS free. It's the US that's the exception. I think you're confusing the fact that it's more expensive to call a mobile number. (As I mentioned in the post above, it's around 4-5 times more, e.g., 4 cent to a landline, 20 cent to mobile.) European mobiles only pay to receive calls when they are in another country.

There's a big difference between 9 and 16 cents and 50 cents. Tell your daughter to find out exactly how much it costs to call you. (If she still doesn't know, have her check her balance, call you for less than a minute, and then check balance again; do this again for less than two minutes, then you will be able to figure out the connection charge and the per-minute rate.) Again, a calling card from a landline is usually the cheapest option, in both directions.

Dialing
 

Thanks for the additional information. I will have her call me and check her balance. I'll have to do that once she tops up. She had already burned through her first 5 euro on the card. She had picked up WIND9 I guess. She hasn't figured out how to text message. She says it doesn't work. Any suggestions about that?

Thanks a million!:)

Wind9 is a special offer of Wind on sale in this period. You pay 9 cent/min (rounded by the minute) plus 16 cent of setup fee (so first minute 25ct, then 9ct/min). But that applies only for calls to Italian numbers.

Calling the US costs 50ct/min plus 15 ct of set-up fee. But maybe the dealer activated her the "Call your country" option (free for a new card) with which she spends 35 ct/min plus the usual set-up fee.

Anyway after each call she receives a flash-sms with the cost of the call and since all billing with that tariff is on per minute base it's really easy to understand how much is she paying.

Sending SMS is really straightforward: just write it and send it ;) She just have to remember to write your number in the international way, so whith the +, like explained above.

She will definitely not get charged if you call her from a US calling card (as long as she is in Italy). Though I am unfamiliar with specific good value US calling cards, you could also consider calling her via VoIP. There are a number of operators who do Italy Mobile for fairly decent rates. Voipcheap.com do it for around $0.15 per minute as far as I remember. You could download the software and top up a minimal amount onto an account. The whole thing only takes a few minutes to set up.

As for text messaging, it is strange that that is not working. It could be that the messaging centre number is not setup properly (though I doubt this). Is she including the full number including the area code? If she is writing the message and then selecting the recipient from the address book, for consistent results she should program her contacts with the full international code and preferably with the + sign at the front. (e.g. +1212....etc. for US numbers or +39347....etc. for her Italian friends... in that case on Vodafone/Omnitel)



Edit: apologies... crossed message with some duplicate info!

I suppose there will be some dialthrough operator with a landline number which she could access for 9c/min and pay a few more cents per minute more to call the USA. Dialnow comes to mind, but they have no Italian access numbers. I am sure someone else here will be able to suggest one though.

As for me calling her, I think I may pick up a international phone card and call her from my Tmobile cell phone. We no longer have a land-line at our home. She called me at five am this morning to tell me she got an internship and was excited. That call alone probably cost me 20.00 dollars USD. Ouch.

Sorry correcton. I just got off the phone with Tmobile and I get charged 34 cents USD per minute when I call her. That is not so bad. :)

One additional question. If my daughter can locate a WIND dialogua international card does she alternate this with her WIND9 card or is it a calling card that she uses while using her cell with the WIND9 sim in it? Sorry for so many questions but the next time I talk to her I want to provide her with as much info as I can. Thanks.

Dialoga International is a calling card you can use with any phone in Italy. From landline and Wind numbers it's cheaper. She could eventually find it at the train station (BTW where in Italy is she?)

You must have an international calling package on your account then. You need to make sure that that rate is to a mobile though and not a landline. If it's to mobiles, then it's okay. Check union telecard for calling cards. I specifically use Mega Clean and Purple to call internationally.

http://www.uniontelecard.com/

Dialing
 

She is in Milan and going to take classes at Bocconi. :) I told her how to message. I'll let you know if she has any further questions. Thanks again guys!:)

Ok, so tell her first to go to PIAZZA CORDUSIO number 2 (it's in the centre) at the main official Wind dealer and ask for the Wind Dialoga International cards there; I hope they should have them, but if they don't, tell her to go to the Stazione Centrale (central railway station) at the big newsstands and see there.

Dialing
 

Thanks Effendi! I will do just that! :) Just to be clear...does she alternate this with the Wind9 sim she is currently using or would she be replacing it with this.

Does that mean she has to tell everybody a new phone number. Sorry for so many questions but with all these different products it gets confusing.

No, this is not a new SIM-card. Just a calling card. So she can call from her Wind9-SIM to the callingcard and everybody can still reach her under the same old number.

Chris

One of the few decent things I can say about calling internationally on T Mobile USA is that they do not surcharge calls to mobiles...calls to most of Western Europe whether it is a landline or a mobile are indeed 34¢/minute which is not all that bad....also once can check out voicestick (www.voicestick.com) to check on rates not only to call Italian mobiles but to use their call forwarding to in effect give her a virtual US number you and her friends can use to call her...I don't think you'll find the rate to Italian mobiles to be all that bad and the number itself is free you need only fund it in $5 increments at a time......

Ok guys, after a week of dear daughter being in Italy i have discovered that for me to send her text messages to her Italian (Wind) mobile number I am only charged .15 per message by Tmobile. Not bad, not bad at all. It's .34 per minute to call which I already knew. Still not bad. She still hasn't bothered to try to get a Wind Dialoga International call so she is dialing me from her Italian Wind 9 sim. I told her everything you guys told me and where to look. I guess it just isn't on her list of priorities as for now. This past weekend she went to Switzerland shopping and racked up her credit card instead. That was far more important. :)

Well, to help pay off the credit card dear ole' Dad might want to check out www.smsbug.com where he may be able to send SMS to her for 3 cts each. I say may because smsBug has had some problems with Wind in the past.

They don't surcharge? Or, you pay too much when calling to foreign landlines ;-)

Don't forget, these are contract prices. With T-Mobile To Go, it's $1.50 a minute to Europe.

I remember. And for that $1.50 they don't connect to Liechtenstein :-P.

Actually, I tried my tmobile payg to my UM card about a month ago and it connected. Before then it used to say some thing that "calling that number is not allowed"

That tmobile rate is still a very good rate to call internationally. AFAIK, all the other US carriers charge upwards of $1 to call a UK landline talkless of a mobile. Unless, one signs up for an international calling plan.

I think I've found a better one! FishText is doing texts from 1p and it seems like their coverage is really good. There's a free trial which is nice, I do like those :D I used it on their website to start with but then I noticed there's a bit you can download to your phone so I use that now - it kept my same mobile number and everything!