Options for a short visit to Italy
 

I'm doing advance planning and bookings for a 3 week trip from Australia to Italy in September. We will be flying directly to Italy and directly home again, so roaming elsewhere in Europe is not an issue.

At home I have a Vodafone Australia prepaid SIM, and also a VOIP prepaid account with MyNetFone, giving me untimed calls anywhere in Australia (to a landline) for $A0.125/call. I have a client for the VOIP installed on my laptop so am able to use it from overseas to call Australia for $A0.125/call (and I have previously so used it from France, Vietnam and Cambodia). Needless to say, I have an unlocked GSM 900/1800 phone.

I've looked at 4 options for making calls within Italy, and I'd appreciate any comments on my analysis, or suggestions for a better alternative. For my calculations I assume that we will make one call within Italy each day for 20 days, split 50/50 between calls to mobiles and calls to landlines, with each call lasting 3 minutes.

Option 1 - use my VOIP, as it seems that most of the apartments we have booked provide internet access at no extra charge (as they should for the price per night we will pay!). The disadvantage is that calls can only be made when we are connected to the internet, and nobody can call us. There is also the unknown quality of the VOIP connection when it travels from Italy to Australia and back again (ie right around the world). One way should be fine - but two ways I don't know.... The cost of this option would be $A0.029/minute to an Italian landline, and $A0.52/minute to Italian mobiles. On the above assumptions the cost would be $A16.47

Option 2 - roam using my Vodafone Australia SIM. Making calls would involve a connection charge of $A1.85, then $A1.50/30 seconds. The total cost on my assumptions would be $A217.00.

Option 3 - buy a TravelSIM card for Euro 34 (which includes $US20 call credit) - and probably there is an additional delivery charge. Although I have a defunct United Mobile SIM, I just checked with TravelSIM and last year's offer to provide a free TravelSIM in exchange for the old UM SIM is no longer extant. So purchase would be needed. At their quoted rate of $US0.50/minute to Italian numbers (landline and mobile) the cost to me would be $A64.00 (plus whatever the delivery charge is).

Option 4 - buy a Wind SIM with the Super Senzia Scatto option, on arrival in Italy. The card cost would be Euro 10 (including 5 Euro call credit), plus Euro 0.17/minute to Italian numbers (landline and fixed). The total cost would be $A24.25

Conclusion - even allowing for some Euros of unused credit on the SIM at the end, the Wind option is by far the best, as it will give good call quality, genuine mobility and reachability at all times, at the lowest cost.

I should have made clear in my post that the TravelSIM I looked at was the UK one, not the other one with an Estonian country code, as I don't want a SIM that would be expensive for others to call

I agree with your conclusion. Go with Wind, you should have no problems. Also using TIM or Vodafone it wouldn't be much more expensive, just for a holiday break.