Help!
 

Here is the problem:

Having bought a TIM SIM card from Telestial, we arrive in Italy and dial out to activate it. Everything goes well. But right after that, on the next attempt and every other attempt afterwards, dialing only yields the following error message: "The signal may be unavailable or the phone number may not be valid". Even dialing 119 gives you this message. I don't even know where to start. Is this a SIM problem or a hardware (Palm Treo 750) problem? I tried calling TIM customer service and was only able to get someone who spoke English once, and then I got hung up on. Then the ones that didn't speak English hung up on me. I'm at wit's end right now. If anyone has any insight on this, please let me know. Thanks.

-J

A couple of years ago, I bought a TIM card on ebay for next to nothing and it worked fine the first time I visited Italy..I even figured out, no thanks to TIM, how to set the voice menus to English.

But then the same thing suddenly happened. Apparently the Italian government has cracked down supposedly in the name of fighting terrorism on the proliferation of unregistered PAYG sim cards. I think what you have to do is go to a TIM store with your passport and I think it is called a coda fisicale and register the card.

This is an ongoing problem for people who throw their monehy away and buy sim cards from telestial...their prices are absurdly high as it is...the same card you can get for €10 they charge $49 and then to book charge you postage and handling and more and more people are discovering the cards are not valid without registration so where is the saving in convenience? Somebody on either this forum or another forum reported a similar problem with a sim card they bought for Norway.

Guys....do not use telestial. If you're buying a local sim, wait till you arrive to make sure the card is properly registered if it is required (sometimes like the UK (except for Orange) no registration is required but in other cases it is).

If you are in italy, dial 4916 or outside italy dial *123# and you'll know the available credit.
to make call to italian or home mobile numbers you do not need insert +39 (its' the same)
but if you are calling american numbers, you need to dial 001 (or +1) and the number.
if the number has been deactivated (strange...) on your phone you have to see "sim card non registrata" or "unregistered sim".
if you are more clear on error i can help you.
Ciao

...you don't dial +001 to call America..either you dial + 1 area code number or you dial 001 area code number....+ stands in for the prefix 00 on gsm mobile phones.