Here is my attempt to provide some general guidance for Americans going to Europe or overseas.

1. Start your planning and research early!

2. Europe uses GSM 900 and 1800 bands and 240 volts and a different electric plug. Make sure your phone is unlocked and will accept another SIM card (ie. if you have T-Mobile US service, try a SIM card from another provider like Cingular) and the appropriate charging equipment. Best is a phone with both bands; 900 is generally to be preferred over 1800 due to performance. If you have a Verizon, Sprint, Alltel or other non-GSM phone, you might ask in your family or among friends, neighbors or work/study colleages if they have a spare GSM phone you could borrow.

3. You can use your US-based GSM carrier SIM in Europe, but you will probably be paying big bucks to do so. Check it out! Call your customer care and verify what they say on the company website. Don't take the word of a CSR for the truth.

4. Calls to and from landline phones are almost always less expensive than cell phone calls. Consider using US or local country calling cards. ATT & MCI, among others, have toll free numbers in most European contries. Their rates may be a bit high, but those cards are usaully available at many chain stores. If you want to try the internet, there are several decent services such as www.onesuite.com or www.enjoyprepaid.com that offer either toll-free or local or both rates from many countries. There are also internet sites that sell other calling cards like Bizon and Cloncom, among others.

5. If you are travelling in only one or two countries only, you might consider one European SIM card from the primary country you are visiting. INBOUND calls within the country are almost always FREE to the receiver. Outside of that country you will be ROAMING and both inbound and outbound calls will usually cost constiderably more than from within the primary country. Vodafone has a travel promise with relatively favorable INBOUND rates in roaming countries where the local Vodafone affiliate has a similar agreement.

6. It is probably preferable to know your European # in advance and purchase the new SIM while you are still at home. Use www.prepaidgsm.net to see what retail prices are in country or direct from the source. You can pick up bargains on Ebay or your family or friends might be able to help. Watch out for dealers as they often charge rather high prices; likewise watch out on Ebay.

7. If you are travelling in three or more countries, your best bet is probably an international card like United Mobile, 09, Geodessa, TravelSIM and the like. Some of these cards offer free inbound in multiple countries. Rates are often quite competitive with single-country SIMs.

8. There are many considerations to choosing the best or right SIM/service for you. Factors include:

will you be using SMS?
will you be using GPRS/data?
will you be mainly making OUTBOUND calls or receiving INBOUND?
what will your call volumes and other usage be?
how much will you be roaming?
what service do your European friends/family have?

There is no one perfect solution for everyone.

9. You might also consider using a callback service to cut your costs (www.enlinea.com or www.callbackworld.com) in conjunction with your international or European SIM card.

10. Disadvantages:

calling to European cell phones is usually more expensive than calling to landlines. Your friends and family might not be so happy when they receive their phone bill from calling you on your United Mobile card and they find that the 100 minutes they talked to you cost them $100! Even apart from the costs, some people may not be willing to call you on your new, exotic, temporary number.

sending a foreign SMS usually costs more than a national message

most often the costs to use your European or international SIM at home (US) are cost prohibitive

Nice job! I have just a couple of minor quibbles:

I'm not sure it's preferable to buy a SIM card in the US compared to on arrival (point 6). It's usually far more expensive to do so, unless you get a bargain on eBay, and there can be problems with old SIMs, non-registered numbers, and the like.

In most cases, once in the destination country, you can go to any shopping area and pick out a SIM you like; you'll have the latest offers to choose from. There are only a couple of countries where this can be difficult (Switzerland), and sometimes you can get a real bargain, sometimes with an almost-free phone; English is not usually a problem. Perhaps it would be better to suggest (say) making a list of people who should have your phone number and have a contact person tell them once you know what it is.

Also, AFAIK, Europe is pretty much all nominally 230 V now; some of it was 220 before, and some 240, and they split the difference.

Travel Promise is a trademark, and you have to request it, so we might want to say something like "Vodafone has an option called Travel Promise that..."

I too would like to say nice job could not have said it better myself. :thumbup:

If you buy a local sim you may have voicemail problems. That is one reason I got a UK vodaphone. I know if you get vodaphone germany the voice prompts are in german. This can not be changed though the rest of your phone can be in your desired language.
Just a thought.
Sinamon you did a great job.
:beer:

You both make valid points. Thanks for adding!

As I noted, my post was just a starter. There have been so many recent questions from various US individuals. I thought it might help to collect the wisdom of the group and PIN the discussion for any future newbies. I also think the community here tries very hard to answer the answerable questions. And of course everyone has their slant.

I am sure, for instance, that both DRN and Andy will have lots of other technology and VOIPs to add to my rather primitive start. I will admit they are light-years ahead of me on those things and I am not competent enough to write about such things.

Remember, the entry was a STARTER.

I don't think I can edit it, but in point 6 instead of

"What out for dealers as they ..." It should be "Watch out for dealers....."

Stan

Actually, in an exchange of e mails with Vodafone DE, I was able to get them to change the voice prompts to English!

Did you write them in German or English? That may be powerlifter's handicap.
He probably has not tried. What are the chances the Voda-de hotline folks speak English?

When I call my Viktor Vox (egad!) hotline, I always speak in German. Contrary to all the negatives you hear about VV, I have always been pleased with their hotline service.

Stan

If you plan to use a callback service in conjunction with a local prepaid SIM or if most of your calls will be incoming, then you should select the local carrier based on who has the best coverage, particularly if all the carriers' SIM packages run about the same price. Since the premium paid for calling a foreign cell phone from the US is almost always uniform for an entire country, you will gain nothing by picking a carrier with better calling plans but less coverage.

On the other hand, if you plan to make many outgoing calls from your prepaid SIM, you should carefully consider the different carriers' calling options and even different options offered by individual carriers to decide which best fits your needs.

When should I roam rather than buying a prepaid SIM?
"It is not a given that it is always cheaper to use a prepaid account, but it does not take many calls at $1.24+/min to make it cheaper. The formula, which I have developed (and humbly dubbed "Newcomb's Cypher" ;) is:
Break_even_minutes = Bare_SIM_price/(Roaming_rate - Prepaid_rate)
Subtract the cost of a typical prepaid call from the cost of the same call while roaming. Divide the result into the cost of the prepaid SIM, discounting it by the value of any included minutes. For some combinations of roaming and prepaid you will find that it only takes a few minutes of use to pay for the prepaid."

Let's put some realistic #s to it AND correct me if I am wrong:

Prices in Euros

Start pack cost 20 with 10 Euro credit so raw cost is 10 Euros

Roaming rate say German SIM roaming in FR 1.59 Euros from documentation I have for an OUTGOING call from a D1 SIM.

Rate on FR SIM to FR .55 Euros

Therefore:

Break even minutes = 10 (bare SIM) / (1.59 - .55)
= 10 / 1.04
= 9 minutes

I take it the same can be done for INCOMING minutes

= 10 / (.79 - 0) (D1 inbound rate / minute is .79 Euros)
= ~ 13

So, in this case, if you think you will make or receive any more than 9 - 13 minutes of roaming calls while in FR with your German SIM, you would according to Newcomb's Cypher probably be better off buying the FR SIM.

BTW, the D1 highest roaming rate in in Zone 5, Egypt, Bulgaria, Thailand, Malta, Hong Kong, and a few others at 3.49. With that kind of outbound rate, the break even will be around 3 minutes in the above example.

OTOH local SIMs offer cheap or sometimes even free retrieving of voicemail.

And more remarks.

4. "Toll free" access numbers may not be really free or fully available.
E.g. 00800 (international toll free numbers) which seem to be very popular as access numbers in Poland for non-Polish calling cards (or other services of that kind) are not free. You must pay a flat "per call" rate from landlines and payphones or national off-net rate from Orange prepaids. Those numbers are not available from other GSM prepaids.

5. As to Europe, inbound calls with local SIMs are free in all the countries except Russia which is changing only now its "billing rules" to "Calling Party Pays"
When using local SIM, inbound SMSes and MMSes are free in Europe and usually free elsewhere.
Inbound SMSes are usually free also in roaming.

7. For any European country you can find an international card with free incoming calls but no international card has free incoming calls in all European countries.
International cards may have no coverage in some European countries (mainly eastern Europe: Estonia, Belarus, Moldova but also Jersey, IoM or Faeroe)
There are problems with SMS interchange with 09 and Hop SIMs.
Some international cards don't support data transmission.

CAn you please give more info about this; How much is this flat rate from payphones; are the 0800 numbers also charged from payphones in Poland;

From german cellphones using "Eplus" you pay 20ct/min for 00800 calls.
Other operators seem to let them trough for free.
0800 is always free of charge - but many numbers are locked from cellphones and public phones because the owners of these numbers dont want to pay the high transaction costs from these destinations.

Chris

It's simple ;). "Historically", 00800's were charged as one billing unit ("impulse") per call. Now most landlines have 60/60 or 1/1 debiting (charging per fixed interval of time, not - "impulses" - fixed amount of money). The current 00800's fee is "inhereted" from times of "impluse" billing. It's usually 0.35 PLN (or 0.71 PLN in some plans with the cheapest monthly fees) per call from landlines,
Polish Telecom payphones still use "impluse" billing. Chip cards for payphones contain 15, 30 or 60 "impulses" and the single "impulse" costs 0.60, 0.50, 0.40 PLN (the "larger" card, the cheaper "impulse"). And the above values are of course fees for 00800's calls. Payphone chip cards are sometimes sold im promotions with some extra "free" "impulses" which decreases the price of a single "impulse" even down to 0.30 PLN. OTOH some dealers add some "commission" to payphone cards so a single "impluse" may cost even 0.65-0.70 PLN.
There are very few "coin-fed" payphones of local landline operators where 00800's cost 0.50 PLN/call (one 50 groszy coin). As of those payphones, I know one 00800 which is really free. It's 00800 321 13 19, free from Netia payphones. It's some access number for a calling card/credit card charged service but I don't know any details.

As to mobile phones, 00800's are available at "national rate with international debiting" :) (ie. 60/60) in Orange (both prepaid and postpaid). It's 0.80 PLN/min in the current prepaid plans and 0.75 PLN/min is most postpaid plans. However, those rates aren't anywhere in the pricelist and the service works "half-officially" :D.
In Plus 00800's are available in postpaid only at national rates (off-net mobile rate).
AFAIK, In Era 00800's are not available at the moment.

As to 0800's from payphones and Orange, I copied a piece of txt from
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/polonia/orange.html

Free calls to the Polish Telecom 0800 freephones (range 08001-08006) are available. However, some numbers from that range (usually local taxi corporations, but not only) are excluded. Calling 0800 lines is possible with zero credit too. Numbers possibly the most interesting for the foreign visitors are access numbers for calling cards: Telecard - 0800.125425 (http://www.telecard.cc, 0.25 PLN/min surcharge for 0800) and TelePIN (http://www.telepin.pl, 1.12PLN/min for 0800). Those access numbers are also available for free from Polish Telecom payphones (other calling card use non-PT 0800's which are available only from landlines or non-PT payphones).

I add here: basically all the Polish Telecom 0800 freephones (range 08001-08006) (also those excluded in Orange) are available for free from the Polish Telecom payphones. Other 0800 numbers (08000,08007-08009) are not available from PT payphones even non-free.
There are very few (and in some regions even none) non-PT payphones which allow all the 0800's.

0800's from Plus and Era mobiles are not available even-non free.

1 PLN is moreless 0.25-0.26 EUR at the moment...

Thanks for your very usefull and complete info! :)

I e-mailed them in English from their web site as I remember (figured out enough Germany to be able to send customer service an e mail) and they responded to me in English...they wanted the pin number off the sim card carrier and voila it was done.

Also let me note that I cannot remove the pin number protection from the phone..I was able to change the pin but no matter how hard I try, they won't let me drop this "protection"...I wonder if this is a vodafone DE thing or general German practice.

One would suppose all vodafone phones can be set to English voice prompts but am willing to bet SFR doesn't allow it...I know I was able to set Vodafone NL and Vodafone IE (ha ha) to English with a little help and also I got my TIM to be set to English but it took some doing and some help on this forum.

I know and understand that having the ability to set voice menus to English should not be required of local sims but there is so much travelling around in this day and age and English is the closest thing to a world wide language (I just read that the referees in the World Cup are required to be able to communicate in English) that it should be almost universal.

I have removed the PIN protection from the 2 D1 and SIMYO cards, so it is NOT a German thing. Just used the feature on my phone to change it.

Sold an ECO Global SIM and the new owner said the SIM card did NOT ask for the PIN when inserted into his phone.

Just two personal experience with LOCAL SIM cards. One good and one bad.

1. Good. German D1 (T-Mobile) cards. Bought 2 cards at a low price off German Ebay several years ago and we have used them in 3 or 4 visits to Germany. Refill cards purchased and have been used. Apart from various family members not understanding the ins and outs -- (don't use to call international #s directly and don't call during a weekday in the daytime. Cards were in XtraOne tarif with economical weekend calling but high weekday daytime costs), they have served their purpose.

2. Very bad. Bought 2 Malta cards about 2 years ago. Purchase price was low, but yearly refills cost approx $55 per year. I invested approx $220 to keep these cards going for two years. Wife & son went in 2005 and 4 of us went in 2006. We did use the cards, but not to the tune of $220. Son did use up most of balance on international calls to his girl friend in US - all but $40. The other card had about $63 balance when we left Malta. Not sure when or even if we would be returning. Rather than throwing another $110 or $220 into these accounts, I thought it best to sell them. My own fault (I was not feeling well at all), but I lost the card with the $40 balance in Munich airport. I just sold the other card for $10 to the only bidder on Ebay.

BOTTOM LINE:

If you decide to buy a local or other SIM for your travels, consider ALL the costs over WHOLE the time of holding the cards. It may simply be best to use up your balance during your current trip and let the card expire with a low balance. You can always by another SIM on your next trip.

Stan

If one has appropriate internet access (probably WIFI or broadband) AND one has a VOIP arrangement, calls can cost nothing. You need a desktop, laptop, of phone which will work with VOIP.

Stan thanks to Andy

Buying in the USA isn't always the best strategy
 

A few weeks ago someone posted an interesting account of his trip to Norway on one of the GSM-related Usenet newsgroups. He has bought a prepaid SIM card in the US from Telestial, only to find on arriving in Norway that the carrier demanded by SMS a local address to register. He was unable to make things work and finally ended up going to a company store owned by that carrier and bought a new prepaid package for which he registered in-store. Telestial is still selling this product with no warnings or disclaimers at their web site.

I've seen some comments on rec.travel.europe that in this age of terrorism, many countries are ending the free ride that lets visitors anonymously activate prepaid cellular accounts. Unless you're sure of the situation you'll face upon arrival, one should be careful about paying the huge premium for the convenience of buying a European SIM card while in the US, since it might not work when you arrive.

That's too bad. It's yet another thing we seem to be losing to the terrorists (either that, or it's a convenient excuse to force us into ridiculous roaming charges, particularly on data). Anyway, did your friend run into any problems registering in person? New EU roaming rules will come into effect soon, so perhaps the thing to do is get a SIM card from a country where private buying by non-residents is still easy (e.g. the UK) while we can, and keep the cards active.

I'm not sure I understand how restricting sales of prepaid SIMs to residents helps prevent terrorism, though. Why not just require registration with a passport or other secure form of ID that can be traced? That seems to bring most of the benefits of identify verification while not denying the tourist the ability to use a local phone.

Isn't that what most of these countries are doing? Switzerland, for example, won't let you get a SIM without providing identification, but a foreigner presenting a passport can get a SIM. It simply has to be done in person. In fact, if you get the package shipped to you while you are in Switzerland, the postal worker will get your passport information from you when he delivers the package with your SIM in it.

Help! Already In Germany With No Local Sim...:(
 

I am very interested in purchasing/signing up for this, or any other, service. I make and receive a lot of calls. I also text a lot. I also know, as I am well-traveled, that European cell phones are a pain the neck when it comes to cost. Here's the deal: My U.S. wireless provider is AT&T (formerly Cingular Wireless), and I would like to know what the best rate is for getting a local SIM here in Germany (I read something that it can make a BIG difference as far as the rates go) when choosing a wireless operator for the purpose of getting a local SIM card. One website said to get a T-Mobile one if I remember correctly.

Please let me know what the best way/(deal?) is for me to go about that. I will be staying 2-4 weeks, my Treo 750 is unlocked, and has all the world's GSM frequencies as well as the 3G bands.

Any responses from experienced travelers would be highly appreciated. :)

Actually, the choice is pretty obvious. If you're going to be placing international calls (back to the US), you'll want Blauworld or one of its clones; all other German prepaids charge ridiculous amounts for international calling.

Do you intend to call mainly to the US or domestic calls? That makes a big difference in choosing the right sim-card for you.

for domestic calls you can for example buy a "fonic" SIM in a lidl supermarket. they charge 9.9 ct/min and 9.9 ct per text to all german networks, but calls to US are 99ct/min.

for international calls the market is smaller. There are some sim that charge around 9ct to the US as well. E.g. the BlauWorld card (www.blauworld.de) or Solomo (www.solomo.de). Sometimes these SIM-cards are also available at calling shops in the bigger cities as well.

Chris

Chris

I got Sunsim for cheap calls within Germany, or that newer Fonic SIM also looks useful, and for international from there use a callthrough service with a local access number, from 0.5c/min extra

Hmmm, I wasn't aware that Solomo is available in stores, or I would have recommended that one, too. Blauworld can be bought at Saturn, and clones can be found at a lot of calling shops.

I meant these calling-shops in dark corners around the train stations ;-) They sometimes have SIM's as well...

Phone while visiting daughter in Italy
 

You guys all helped when I needed to decide what phone card would be best for my daughter who is studying abroad in Milan. She got Wind9 and that has worked out great for her. Thanks. Now maybe you can help me...

I am going to visit her for about a week and a half. My phone, unlike hers, is not a quad band. With hers, we just went to Tmobile here in the states and had them unlock it so while she is there she is using the Wind sim card and it has worked great for her.

I would have to borrow a quad band unlocked gsm phone or buy one. If I buy one from Tmobile, they'll make me activate another line in order to get a discount on the phone. We don't need another line and my phone still works fine too so I am not really in the market for a new phone per se. Of course, now that I have said that my phone will probably die.

Alex, my daughter, is wondering why I would even need a phone but I figure it would be nice to be able to reach her if I had to call her from Malpensa airport, the train station, from my hotel or her apt while she is in class and I am out exploring Milan while she is in class or at her internship. Anyways, what do you guys recommend? My husband also said I could probably rent a phone for a week once I get there.

Just looking for some practical cost effective ideas.

Thanks in advance.

Definitely do not rent. You can buy a phone and sim for your duration for less than how much it will cost to rent. First, what type of phopne do you have? It may be able to work there. it does not have to be a quadband to work there. It just needs to have the 900/1800 bands. If you do nto have one that will work there. Either get an unlocked from ebay or buy a tmoibile locked phone from walmart or tmobile prepaid page and have tmobile unlock the thing. You know it's free to unlock via tmobile.

For example, I have tmobile payg as backup that I rarely use. Not too long ago I bought the Moto V195 quadband brand new from their prepaid page for $14 ($39 - $25 refill that came with it). This deal is no longer there, but you can get an okay phone that will do from there or the other outlets I mentioned.

Bossman,

I've purchased phones on deals similar to the one that you are mentioning, but don't you think we should make it clear what unlocking a prepaid entails?

The poster is a tmobile USA contract customer. So, unlocking it should nto be a problem. That's why I specifically responded so. If it's a prepaid customer, the acct needs to be in good standing and at least 90 days old. I have not topped up my payg acct. Since Jan of this year, and I got the unlocked code for the phone I bought in may/June immediately I received the phone.

Oops, mea culpa.

You really don't need a quad-band phone. All that is used in Europe is 900 & 1800. You can get by with either 1800 or 900 depending on the carrier you plan to use. The traditional tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900) phone will give you everything you need. Right now TigerDirect.com has a Moto v188 quad-band GSM phone for $50. Click here to see phone.

Phone while in Milan
 

Hi Guys:

Sorry I forgot to tell you about what phone I have. Its a nokia 6103b. Its a triband phone with domestic tri band. (850, 1800, and 1900 MHz). So as Bossman suggested if its usable, I know I can get Tmobile to unlock it for me. They did so for Alex since we had our account for several years now. But will this phone even work. I thought I needed that 900 band.

Thanks for your help. It would be great if I could just get it unlocked and use a sim while there or I suppose I could even use it with my own sim but I would want to call Tmobile and find out what cost I would be roaming at over there. We text each other a lot so we could always go that route too.

I guess the big question right now is will this phone work over there at all?

It will work, but probably not very well. I do not see an 1800 ONLY carrier listed for Italy on the gsm world page. But, that could be old. The forum members in Italy will be in a better position to answer that question. Personally I would not go to Europe without a phone with the 900 band.

http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_it.shtml

T Mobile USA charges $0.99 a minute, rounded up to the next minute, for roaming in Europe on its contract customers.

Also the frequency issue is a far from trivial issue, especially when choosing a prepaid local sim card in various countries. There was a sad case about a year and a half ago of a person going to Croatia who bought a "world tri band" phone on E bay, bought a Croatian sim card and when it didn't work was told by the idiot of a clerk at the mobile phone store that the problem was the phone was locked...no it wasn't but since it was an American 850/1800/1900, the Croatian operator she chose operated only on 900.

The problem can be critical if you buy Nokia phones because they don't have the decency to number the American phone differently from the European phone. Thus a very cheap entry level Nokia phone, the 3120 comes as the 3120 for worldwide use with 900/1800/1900 and the 3120B for American use (850/1800/1900) but rarely do sellers know the difference nor does the B figure predominantly in the documentation or whatever.

Being partial to Nokias, this has always been a problem at least for me. Also, for a long time, T Mobile USA which operates only on 1900 when it sold tri bands, sold 900/1800/1900 but in order to keep up with the Jonses (AT&T), T Mobile USA has been forced because of the limitations of its coverage to sign roaming agreements in the USA with some smaller carriers who operate on 850. Thus for the past 2 years or so, tri bands sold by T Mobile USA have been of the 850/1800/1900 variety. It also means that Americans never get the latest and the bestest (!) of the new phones as the manufacturers for obvious reasons, do not bastardize their all of their latest phones and thus onlhy a small minority of tri bands are available to Americans.

Now of course the obvious solution are quad bands. I don't particularly like Motorola phones and have been told (never having owned one) that their early quad band models sucked. Apparently there has been some improvement lately. Nokia has not embraced quad band for anything other than their top of the line phones. T Mobile USA has not sold SE phones for a while ever since the fiasco they had with the T68, the T300, the T310 and even the T610 although again I hear SE has upgraded its product line and their quad band phones today are pretty good.

Moral of the story...be careful when selecting a phone from a North American provider to use in Europe. If it is being used for roaming, chances are you won't have a problem because usually there is a roaming agreement with some provider on 1800 and the phone will seek it out....OTOH if using a North American tri band for a local sim, make sure it is a true world phone (900/1800/1900) not the ones manufacturers have had to modify to meet the "contrary mnded" USA market.

1800 only should be OK if you are in urban areas such as in Milan, though due to only half the available transmission power available in this band it will deteriorate in rural areas but primarily as it is more viable for the operators to install the 900MHz base stations in these areas. Probably best to let an Italian answer specifics about Milan as has been mentioned.

Generally in Europe, it all really depends on the countries you are going to I suppose. As you say for Italy it sounds like it's not much good but you'd still get away with 1800 only in much of Europe. For the UK, 1800 only is still fine for Orange, T-Mobile and MVNO's such as Virgin. In Germany you have E-Plus and o2 and the stack of cheap MVNO's that come with those.

I remember the days of roaming on my old single band phone quite well.

True, there were some problems, though I don't think it was anything to do with the quad band per se. The first Moto quads were the "triplets" -- v300, v525, and I think v600. They had a habit of frying very easily. My wife went through three v525s, the first lasting four moths, the second lasting a week. (The third is still going strong after three years.) However, the reception on all four bands was perfectly fine, and the RAZR V3 is essentially nothing more than a flattened-out triplet.

Having dealt with earlier frail Motos, I'm not sure it was anything particular to that series. However, Moto supposedly had a lot of problems with getting both 850 and 900 to work satisfactorily using the same antenna, although I can't see this as being a huge hurdle, and a few years of labwork ought to have solved this long ago.

I just wish they'd make everything quad by default, rather than (as in Nokia) treating it as a high-end "feature". Surely it would save trouble from the customer-service point of view.

One more piece of advice: If your TMO phone contains the MyFaves software, you would be well advised to delete it before using it on another network. I didn't, and received a flood of text messages on some European carriers.

Ok. I am considering two things. I may use my existing tri band phone which does not have the 900 band so from what you guys are saying, reception may or may not exist. We will be in Milan and may go to Rome for the weekend or perhaps Venice and/or Florence. Haven't decided our weekend plan. Otherwise, I am thinking about upgrading my phone to a quad band. Either way I am probably gonna just use my worldwide calling feature at .99 per minute as I am only going to use my phone to get a hold of her if she is away from me...in class or such and possibly call back to the states but on a really limited basis. Do you think I should just take my tri band phone along and make due?

my 2 cents
 

Suspect 1800 will suffice in large cities. Take your phone & see.

DRN has a nice formula for determining break even on buying a local SIM. Maybe he will repost.

1. Estimate how many minutes @ $1 / minute you think you will use. INCLUDE any unexpected inbound calls from US, including calls going to voicemail (advise to shut that off, if possible) and inbound calls from daughter. For 10 days or so, you might be surprised, especially if US folks are used to calling you. I bet that runs you $15.

2. Estimate cost of local SIM and same calling time. Guessing the cost will be < $15 and include at least 30 minutes call time. Our IT folks know the exact setup and may be on the IT page.

3. Take lowest alternative.

4. Have a calling card for landline dialing, either US or Italian.

1800 can suffice in large cities only on Wind, and anyway you'll probably have not much coverage inside buildings at low floors. With TIM and Vodafone I suspect you need 900 much more...