A new Italian SIM card, with a new number, takes minutes to activate at any telephone shop (TIM, Wind, Vodafone, 3), costs about 5-10€, can roam all over the world with a suitable phone and expires in one year. All added credit can be used for calls (no recharge fee) and extends the duration for another year.
Before making some big investment on an international phone rental or a satellite phone, a foreign visitor should consider that most portable or cell (=cellular) phones in Italy use pre-paid cards which only cost up to €5 per activation. They can be purchased in telephone shops, also at airports, stations, malls, where employees may speak English.
There is also a minority of subscribed users, charged on their credit card, but they are subject to a €10/month governmental tax (and €25 for business use), this is why mobile phone companies have invented pre-paid phone cards, about 10 years ago.
Pre-paid card buyers are assigned a new telephone line of the type 3XX followed by 7 digits, which can be reached, without receiving charges, from all over the world like for instance as +39-3xx-1234567. +39 is the Italian international prefix, which can be included also when calling from Italy.
By law there is no more recharge cost (since 2007). So you can buy what you need, down to €2 per recharge (with some operators) or €10.
The national coverage is over 99,9% of the national territory for all of them: Vodafone, TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile), 3 (H3G), Wind. You only need a GSM cell phone: the one where you put a SIM card in.
There is only one (digital) portable phone technology in Italy, which has completely replaced the previous still only (analog) technology: TACS.
Most cell phone company websites are in Italian, with a small section for foreign visitors. Frequencies in Italy are 900 and 1800 MHz (instead of 800 and 1900 in Usa), in addition to 3G (third generation, the real global one), called in Italy UMTS, for video calls and fast Internet.
Smartphones, palm phones or phones that can be connected to a (laptop) also allow browsing the Internet via GPRS or UMTS.
Telephone shops may offer a free Internet phone configuration, when activating a new line. Most companies also offer a flat rate around between €20 and €30 a month for almost unlimited Internet access, without the need of a long term subscription. Alternatively they charge around 2 euros per 15 minutes increments or €0,05/kilobyte.
A SIM card will usually expire after one year from activation or the last recharge (€2). The full credit rolls over.
The last month can be for receiving only. Lines can also be recharged from the Internet (from abroad) to extend the line life for another year and keep the same number on a next visit to Italy or Europe.
Unlike some other countries (like Net10 in the USA and Vip in Croatia, which I experienced), once expired a SIM card cannot be used anymore and the available credit left is lost. So save you SIM card only if you are planning to come back before one year from your last recharge or to recharge it (put in credit to push the expiration date for another year) also from abroad, from the Internet, from your provider's website.
The cost of calls vary by the number called. Fixed numbers start by 0 (eg. Rome 06, Milan 02) and are around 10 cent/min.
Cell phone numbers, start by 3xx+6 or 7 digits, can cost around 30-50 cents/min depending on the active plan.
Plans with lower per minute rates usually charge 15 cent as connection fee.
Calls can be charged by the second or the minute.
Some plans or additional options include reduced rates on nights or on weekends.
Calls received in Italy are free. Receiving abroad there is a roaming charge, which corresponds to the cost of a call from Italy to that country according to your plan.
Roaming charges can go on a credit card or be taken from the available credit if calling using special sequences of prefixes depending on the operator, like
*123*dialed number# (pre-paid roaming calls)
899, 166, 005 are very very expensive numbers. 892 are just expensive (some services).
800 numbers are free, but cannot be always reached by cell phones.
Some airlines, rent a car and other call centers have 199 or 848 numbers, comparable to fixed line costs.
Calls to Europe and Usa are around 40-50 eurocent/min. Some foreign areas or foreign mobile phone companies can go up to €4/minute in 30 seconds increments.
Text messaging, called SMS from Short Message Service (15 cent each) is very widespread.
MMS - MultiMediaService (to transmit photos, emails or music) require a complex phone configuration and cost about 50 eurocent/min. Video calls cost between €0,50 and €1.
Wi-Fi out of airports is not common, but Internet cafès are more and more.
In addition to this already complex picture (but similar to many foreign countries) there is a jungle of offers and plans, but the writer's opinion is that mobile operators offer equivalent plans. Careful customer will face an average cost that does not change much from one operator to another one, and are not worth further analyses for stays in Italy of a couple of months or less or if just used in emergency or moderately.
hi, new to the site, thanks.
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