ITALY

The cellular system in Italy offers FREE and un-metered airtime on all incoming calls. Local SIM cards are widely available. Prepaid local cards are available to any walk-in customer and can easily be purchased locally at network providers shops and authorized dealers. These shops are spread out in most of the main cities as well as central hubs – airports and train stations. Prepaid cards – global or local – normally cost about Euro 25 (approximately $30) for the card and additional prepaid credit.

Reloading prepaid cards is also made very easy. Scratch cards with prepaid credit can be purchased in most any kiosk, convenience store, post office, etc.

Italy cellular providers and networks

Your cellular options in Italy

The following table maps out the various alternatives and their estimated costs.

All rates are presented in USD currency per minute

1 Estimated, may vary between providers
2 Ranges depending on call destination. Calls within the same cellular network are usually the cheapest.
3 Represented are the ranges of roaming rates offered by North American cellular providers

It just does not make sense to travel with a US or Canadian plan under the international roaming rates. You will be paying very high rates for a service that you can get for much less or even for FREE. The saving that you will generate from 100-150 minutes with the global SIM card will pay for a SIM card and a new phone.

Buying a local prepaid SIM card is very simple and widely available at many local locations. In Italy in particular, the local SIM cards offer good rates for local calls and relatively reasonable rates for international calls. If you plan to call your home or office from the local SIM card you will benefit from using a callback service. With SIM and callback combined international call rates s are made reasonable.

The fine print on the local SIM card deal relates to the roaming charges. Local SIM cards will charge heavily on roaming (USD 0.45 – 1.30 per minute) if used outside of Italy. If you plan to visit multiple destinations you will need to swap SIM cards once you leave Italy, or as an alternative use the global SIM card that features free roaming throughout Europe and numerous other destinations.

Renting a local phone will probably turn out to be the wrong way to go taking into account the monthly airtime plans and rental fees. The monthly plans in many cases offer you a bulk of minutes for a fixed monthly fee. Additional minutes are charged at a higher rate. Just because your local carriers do it doesn't mean you have to fall for this again – you never use your exact quota, you either under-use your minutes and loose the remaining balance for that month, or exceed the quota and pay a "fine" for the additional minutes. Anyway you look at it you loose. The industry average for renting the phone alone (device only without airtime) is $30-50 per month. If you couple that with the monthly minute plans, you are probably better off buying a new phone and using a global SIM card than renting. You will most likely pay off the phone and card after your first or second trip, just based on the difference between the two options (and the phone is yours to keep).

Bottom line for Italy is that your reasonable choices are between the Global SIM or the local prepaid, depending on your profile. Roaming users will do better with the Global SIM card. It would also simplify the callback alternative of the international saving with the local SIM card. If you have business in Italy or you plan to make many local calls, the local SIM is your best choice bundled with the callback for optimized international rates.
The options of renting or traveling with your US or Canadian cellular plan are very expensive. Wouldn't you prefer to treat yourself with the finest Italian restaurants every evening? The difference in rates would probably pay for that.

For additional savings you can use calling cards or callback services when at the hotel or near a fixed line phone. Doing this may cut your costs of outgoing calls to a third of what the lowest cell rate would offer you.

To have option of choosing your service and SIM card you need to have an Unlocked world GSM phone. Click the following link to learn more about ordering global SIM cards.