Ciao,
I will be studying at the University of Bologna for a year, beginning in August, and I want to get a phone ASAP following my arrival in Bologna, so I need to research this ahead of time as much as possible.
I've heard of a good international calling plan from Tre (?15 per month, 50 hours of calling to US landlines or mobiles, many other countries included as well). Calls must originate from 3's native UMTS network (not GSM roaming) to qualify and are limited to 10 hours in any single day.
I understand that 3 is a UMTS-only provider with roaming on GSM, but I'm not familiar with the Italian mobile scene much, so I don't know how competetive 3's tariffs are and how good their coverage is. I do know I can use GSM where there's no UMTS coverage, so I'm not concerned about having coverage for domestic calling.
So, does anyone out there have 3? How is the coverage (ever been to Bologna?
) Are the rate plans for voice and text cometetive with TIM, WIND and Voda? I don't THINK I will use videochamate, MMS or data much so I'm not too concerned with that, but who knows what my life will be like in 6 months?
Anyway I am mostly concerned with making the international calls (thus I need to stay in UMTS areas) and how competetive their voice/SMS prices are.
Any thoughts?
Grazie!
- Michael