wanderer

We have rented an apartment in Italy for our stay.

We are to call our contact when we land at the airport to arrange meeting time/place.

My husband and I have a GSM world phone (Motorolla V551) with Cingular, and we have added International Calling for this trip.

The directions we received on how to call within Italy from the cell are very confusing. I am hoping someone more worldly than myself can interpret.

"Please note that the (+39) is the international dialing code for Italy. Depending on where you are phoning from, the code in front of the 39 will be different. If phoning from within Italy on a foreign mobile/cell phone you must put the code in before the 39."

What code are they talking about? I need to know:

1) How do I call locally within Italy?
2) How do I call the US?

I am not familiar (obviously) with International calling, so please be very basic.

Thanks.

ssachida

Here's an example...
The information hotline for the Borghese gallery in Rome is : +39 06 32810

From the US dial: 011 39 06 32810
From anywhere in Italy dial: 06 32810
From the UK dial: 00 06 32810

Your cellphone is basically a US number, so you should call as if from the US.

If you buy a new SIM card for your stay in Italy, you will get an Italian telephone number for your cell, and then can call as if from an Italian phone.

The + represents the international calling prefix for the country you are colling from (011 in the US and not required within Italy since its not an international call)

39 is the country code for Italy and should be prefixed to any Italian number when calling from outside Italy

0 is the long distance dialling prefix (like 1 in the US and 0 in the UK)

6 is the area code for Rome (or atleast 1 of the area codes for Rome). The Italian telephone system requires you to dial the long distance code and area code even if it is a local call, i.e. dial 06-xxxxxx even if it is a local call.

Hope that helps.

isabel

If you have a Cingular Motorolla GSM world phone it is probably "unlocked" (although some Cingular phones are locked, for some reason most of the Motorollas are not). If it is unlocked you can buy a SIM card when you get there for €20 and be able to make a lot of local calls for that initial €20 plus any calls TO you from the US will be free (for you). It's a lot cheaper than having Cinular add International Calling. You might want to check into it.

wanderer

We will be in Venice, and will need to call the owner of the apartment as soon as we land, so no opportunity to get a SIM card for that call, but am interested in perhaps getting that for later.

So, if I understand, anywhere I call in Vencie from my cell, I dial 01139and the number. When I call home to the US what do I dial? The area code in the US is 978.

If we want to get a SIM, where do we find one for the phone, and are they hard to get? Where is the SIM located on the phone, or will they help with taking current one out and installing new one. Then I must replace the US one when I land in US so that I can call limo?

If we decide to bag all this and use a calling card while in Venice how do those work and how difficult to use? I have vivid memories of spending 15 minutes at a phone in Paris with some sort of card, not being able to get a call through.

ssachida

call your US number as you would a long distance number within the US, i.e. 1-978-number.

SIM cards are not hard to find. There are cell phone stores everywhere. The SIM card is usually located behind the phone, under the battery. The SIM store will help you find it.

I cant help you with calling cards I'm afraid.

isabel

One thing to consider is whether you will be calling the US alot or if you can have them call you. If you can have the people you want to talk to in the US call you, then getting a SIM card will save you a bundle since incoming calls are free. My family called me every day from the US when I was in Italy last summer and used the 10-10-987 dialing which meant the calls only cost our home phone 3 cents a minute and didn't cost the cell phone anything. So we'd talk for about a half hour for less than a dollar. No cell phone plan or calling card will be even close to that. However, if YOU have to call them, then the SIM card might be as much (or more) than getting an international calling card. You can get a calling card here in the US before you go. If you google "international calling cards" you'll get several sites and you can compare the costs. I had one (MCI)as back up and I think the calls were about 15 cents a minute to the US from Italy. If you don't use it up on your trip you can always use it here in the US where I think domestic calls are about 3-5 cents a minute. You can also get them at places like SamsClub.

If you get the international calling card before you go then you can use that to make the initial call and have it for when you want to call the US. If most of the time they can call you, then get a SIM for that, and for making other local calls within Italy.

wanderer

This is all very confusing to me, but everyone's posts are making it at least a little more clear.

We have a kitty at home who we are leaving, neighbor is checking in on while we are gone. Usually when we go away, our neighbor calls our home phone from her house, and leaves me a message on how the kitty is. I then can call anytime convenient to get the messages.

So I would be calling the US from Italy. Would Italian SIM help there, or should I just use our international roaming on the cell?

Other option - trying to figure out which is cheaper, is for neighbor to call my cell (US #) and leave messages on my cell voicemail. Perhaps retrieving these messages would be cheaper? Probably the same, as phone has to dial to get voicemail, I believe.

I'm not quite following the charges if people call me on cell from US. Why does US calling phone get charged as well as receiving cell phone? Isn't that double-dipping so to speak?

Do we have to have a certain plan to use the 10-10 thing? I am a little leary of doing that, as one time we used something similar, and it set our LD to a new company.

So for our needs - to either call home to US and get kitty updates, or to check voicemail periodically, which would be cheapest? We kind of want to use the cell for convenience and not be hunting around for pay phones to use calling card.

I shouldn't say cheapest - most convenient, I guess. I don't care if I spend $100 or so on calls for kitty. She is worth it.

Other option is scouting out an internet cafe. Don't know how these work or where I would locate one. Any advice on these also might be helpful. Then neighbor could just send me email. Maybe a dumb question, but are you able to get email from a cell phone, and if so, how cost-effective?

isabel

Well I can't answer all your questions, but here's the answer to some of them:

internet cafes are all over Italy, including Venice. You pay a small fee (few euros) for a period of time (like 15 minutes) and then you get access to the web, so if you have web based email you could easily do that.

The 10-10-987 is not a plan, you just dial those numbers, then the number you are going to call (domestic or international) and it costs about 3 cents a minute plus a connection fee which I think just went up to 46 cents per call. The charges get sent on your regular phone bill. Sounded too good to be true but I've been using it for two years and it really works. If we forget to use it, our old long-distance kicks in, so it doesn't "take over" or anything.

The SIM card allows you to make local calls (within Italy) for a very reasonable amount (can't remember how much, few cents a call) and to RECEIVE calls from anywhere, including the US, for free. Obviously your kitty can't call you, but maybe your neighbor could. You'd just have to call her once to tell her what your "new" Italian cell phone number is(comes with the SIM card). You can still make calls to the US with the SIM card but it will cost more. I wouldn't think it would be anywhere near $100 if you are just making short calls to check a message.