Hello folks,

I find myself unexpectedly staying in Italy longer than I had planned with no anticipated date of departure as of today.

I need advice about the most cost efficient way to make-receive phone calls as I may be here for several more weeks.

I have a cell phone with a TIM card which I recharged last week for 30 euros and it has already expired with just a couple of very quick (seconds) long phone calls to the USA. Do I use TIM minutes for RECEIVING calls from the USA?

I have no land line.


My family has a Zaptel card which they use to call me. I need to upgrade that one too, since I have only the cell phone for them to call me on and the rates for calling a cell phone are higher than calling a land line.

I would research this but have to go to a local bar to use the internet and the costs are really piling up for getting on line.

thoughts, ideas?? thanks so much

You can receive calls on your cell at no charge, but the person calling will pay dearly.

Go to any bar and ask for an International Calling Card for calling the U.S. (or your destination country). You may use it from a pay phone for the most minutes-per-card, or toll-free from your cell for fewer minutes.

To use, follow this instructions on the back of the card (dial appropriate toll-free number, enter the scratch-off pin, followed by 00 and the entire destination number).

The international calling card is well-documented on the ST site if you need more info. (You should be able to get online for €3 per hour, if not, boycott!)

We do get charged minutes when we receive a call here. A call from Turkey to me, here in Italy, cost me nearly 40 Euro!

Use the internet one more time and go onto

www.callingcards.com

You can buy the best calling card for you at very low prices, pay by credit card online and get your pin number immediately online. They will also allow you to top off your minutes on the same site.

This is a wonderful site for those who travel extensively as you can compare the cards for the costs to the country or countries you will be calling the most and see what, if any, other charges are made: i.e. if you are charged per minute or a 3 minute minimum, service charges, charges if calling from a cellphone, etc.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by alaskaitaly:
We do get charged minutes when we receive a call here.[/URL]
Ask how much the person who calls (your cell phone) pays!

I would also investigate skype.com.

In April 2008, while staying in Aci Castello, I needed to use my cell phone, with a TIM SIM card, for many local calls and calls to the U.S. while my husband was hospitalized in Catania.

I did use an international calling card but I was still running out of time. I learned that the local calls using my TIM service cost 45 euro cents per minute. The clerk at the local cell phone store told me about the Vodaphone plans. I bought a Vodaphone SIM card for 5 euros (there was a special promotion at that time, it even included 5 euros of calling time). The Vodaphone plan that I got cost 25 euro cents for the first minute, then 9 euro cents for subsequent minutes.

Another option is to call the U.S. collect. You can do that by calling 800-172-444 to get an AT&T international operator to reverse the charges. (I have not tested this but I do know that is the number to call from Italy.) Of course, the person you are calling should have international calling activated on their phone so the calls are charged at a much lower rate.

A third option is to register with a callback service. I have read about this one but haven't used it: Callback Service: www.callbackworld.com charges 9 cents per minute if you dial the U.S. from Italy. To use this service, you need to register the phone number you'll be using while in Italy. You dial a US phone number and let it ring twice, hang up, the system calls you on your mobile in Europe, you'll hear a message to enter your destination number.

Best wishes.

Be careful which calling card you get. Some [many?] charge so much for using a cell phone that it's more expensive then just using your TIM phone.

You can't make collect international collect calls with a cell phone.

Cheapest way to call is to use a calling card and a pay phone.

I should clarify the extent of my testing my cell phone to call collect from Italy. I did use the AT&T number and I reached an international operator. I did not ask her to place a call to the U.S. So, I think it works but I can't say categorically that it does.

I may test it completely when I am in Italy in October. If I do, I'll report back.

quote:

alaskaitaly


Posted 18 July 2008 04:37 AM
We do get charged minutes when we receive a call here. A call from Turkey to me, here in Italy, cost me nearly 40 Euro!

What cell phone provider is charging you for incoming calls? Are you roaming in Europe with a U.S. phone and SIM?

Bill

Try Onesuite.com, they have prepaid phone card services and voip at the same time. Thats what I use whenever I need to make long distance calls. It's accessible in Italy and most parts of Europe.

Jayz,

Have you used onesuite.com in Italy? Can you usually get through to the local access number they provide?

I have had the experience of using International calling cards when the local access numbers are often busy.

Thanks for the recommendation and for any additional information you might have.

quote:

Do I use TIM minutes for RECEIVING calls from the USA?

I don't think anyone actually answered this question, and the answer, as far as I know, is no. You do not pay for incoming calls with a TIM card. But of course, whoever is calling you would probably want to find a cheap way to call, and it usually is more expensive to call a cell phone number than a landline.

By the way, Suzy is right about those international cards. We bought one once in Italy that we could NEVER get to work. This was before we had a cell phone.

I have used Callback World, and it works pretty well. You can use it the way Suzy said, to make calls. You can also set it up so people in the US can call you at no cost to them.

The calls are billed to your credit card, so the person calling you would not pay anything. They would call a tollfree number in the US, put in a code, and then be transferred to your phone number. The calls from US to Italy are 9 cents a minute to a landline, but 28 cents a minute to a cell phone. We used it when my mother-in-law was in a nursing home; we gave the staff there the number so they could contact us if necessary. But you wouldn't want to give it out indiscriminately since you pay for all the calls.

Also, if you haven't already set it up, I think it would be hard to do from Italy, as you need to do it on a computer and enter your credit card info. I don't think I would want to do that from an internet cafe.

- Roz

How come her 30 euros worth of TIM minutes were used up so quickly? All these posts tout how cheap having a local SIM card is for calls. With my global SIM from telestial I figured out that 30 euros would buy me 100 minutes at $0.48/min (dollar cents not EURO cents) to the US which I regard as intermediately priced, but several people have regarded as expensive considering how cheap their cost per minute is on TIM.

It's about 50 cents a minute to call North America. With per minute billing to boot. North America isn't covered by the cheap cell phone calling plans either. Still even at that price it should take more then a few calls to hit 30 Euros.

I don't know about AG's use but when I was using my cell phone with the TIM SIM card, I didn't realize that the local calls were as expensive as they were - 45 euro cents a minute. So, I was using quite a bit of my calling time that way. Perhaps that has been happening to AG.

quote:

Originally posted by dragonpat:
How come her 30 euros worth of TIM minutes were used up so quickly? All these posts tout how cheap having a local SIM card is for calls.

Local SIMs are cheaper for both local calls and calls abroad compared to U.S. cell phone providers ($1 minimum, calling and receiving). They're not cheap compared to the use of land lines.

,50 euro cents per minute is normal for a call to the U.S., Tim or Vodafone. You pay nothing to receive, but your caller will pay .25 per minute minimum, but usually higher.

I haven't had any trouble using an International Calling Card the few times I've used it in the last six months, but I always use it from a pay phone, never from my cell. The cost, I believe, was .03 per minute.

If you can find a private internet connection and you and your callee can use Skype, you pay nothing to talk, and pay only the cost of the internet session, around .05 euro per minute. You can also use Skype to call regular phone numbers for a low per-minute fee.

quote:

50 euro cents per minute is normal for a call to the U.S., Tim or Vodafone. You pay nothing to receive, but your caller will pay .25 per minute minimum, but usually higher.

50 euro cents are 80 dollar cents. the 48 dollar cents a minute from Telestial Passport Global SIM to the US or wherever while you are in Italy starts to look good. The 50 cents I quoted at the start of the post, if it in is dollar cents instead of euro cents, at worst looks comparable.

The telestial Global SIM you pay nothing to recieve calls also.

The Telestial Global SIM has a UK phone number and everything is in English. itg looks to me like the price per minute of the global SIM is at least comparable to the local TIM SIMs unlike what many posters have been saying. I am am not comparing the cost of a local SIM to AT&T international roaming.

If you're calling North America but for calling in Italy not really. I've got a balanced plan at 16 cents per minute. But there are other plans at 9 cents or so depending on who you call. Or plans with buddy numbers. Two people traveling together would be best off with a buddy number setup.

quote:

Originally posted by dragonpat:
The telestial Global SIM you pay nothing to recieve calls also.

You pay nothing to receive calls with any European cell carrier -- as long as you are not roaming. If you have a French cell, and go to Italy, and someone calls you from Brussels, you & they will BOTH pay.

A Telestial UK number might work, but keep in mind that unless you are in the UK, you are roaming, and so will never place a "local" call. That said, European roaming is significantly less than U.S. roaming, for example.

In any case, the Telestial.com site is very clear and it's easy to compare their Passport rates, UK rates, and Italian Tim/Vodafone cell rates to see which might best fit your calling patterns.

quote:

You pay nothing to receive calls with any European cell carrier -- as long as you are not roaming

quote:

A Telestial UK number might work, but keep in mind that unless you are in the UK, you are roaming, and so will never place a "local" call.

Yes I get that part about roaming on the Continent because the phone has a UK number, but then maybe there is something I am not understanding about the chart on this page
http://www.telestial.com/view_product.php?PRODUCT_ID=MSIM-PP01
It looks like if you are in Italy, calls that you RECEIVE are free.
Or is it jsut that their policy on charging on receiving calls is different from TIM and vodafone? I never was charged for receiving any of my daughter's calls (She has the same kind of SIM that I do with a UK number) while I was in Italy, only the ones I made.
I don't make many local calls while I am in italy anyway. I mostly call the United States.
I am guessing that those super low rates/min for TIM and Vodafone that had been quoted in previous threads are for calling Italian numbers while you are in Italy, and not for calling the USA from Italy.

For calls to the United States I've found that it is cheapest to go the tabachi shop and buy an international calling card. The one I used last week was a Europa and they come in 5E and 10E denominations. They work from all the telephone cabinets. Be sure you ask for an international card and specify you are calling the United States. A 5 Euro card starts out by saying you have 40 minutes. I call the 800 number in Italian, as the English 800 often doesn't work. Then follow the instructions on the card, put in the PIN and then the US number (prefix001)followed by an asterik

quote:

Originally posted by Suzy Kane:
Jayz,

Have you used onesuite.com in Italy? Can you usually get through to the local access number they provide?

I have had the experience of using International calling cards when the local access numbers are often busy.

Thanks for the recommendation and for any additional information you might have.

I've never been in Italy but my friend there (near Roma) is using Onesuite for his long distance calls. He never said anything about having problems with the Onesuite access numbers. BTW, Onesuite also have a voip feature so you can also use it through computer with internet access of course.

Thanks, Jayz.