iPhone in Italy?
 

Will I be able to use my iPhone in Italy? I have a standard contract with AT&T. Will I have phone, email, and/or web access with the standard phone or will I need to get a new SIM card?

Yes, you can use it with your regular phone/sim card. The per minute usage is 1.29 if you stay with the standard services. You can get it to .99/min if you pay something like 5.99/month.

The web/email usage is very expensive with the regular services. They have worldwide plans you can add to your regular service for anywhere from 19.99 to 149.99/month. It's still not unlimited downloads though.

I believe text was .50 each, maybe. I just finished doing some traveling to Europe and can't remember the exact options. It's all on their web site though. You can add and subtract the options right on the site.

One great options was when I was in London and my husband was in the states. He added an option where he could call overseas for .99/minute. (It was 3.99/month) This charge was if he used his cell to call my cell OR, if he used his cell to call a landline over in Europe, it was only .08/minute. Usually I would call or text him, let him know when I'd be back in my hotel room and then he'd call on the hotel phone. WAY less expensive that way.

To get an idea of how expensive the web/email usage can get, search the web, for example:

http://consumerist.com/290928/and-th...76-iphone-bill

My sister and her husband are now living in Italy part time. She uses her iphone quite a bit for email and web, her bill is around $250/month, I believe. Her husband uses it constantly because of his job and his is a lot more.

I've used mine on several trips to Italy. Here's an older thread and in some of the answers myself and others have posted, you can find a lot of helpful info - http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...2&tid=35107201

As a note, AT&T has added a new data package since my last trip last April. They now have 3 tiers of data service available as opposed to the two they had at the time of this thread. I lever for Italy again in 2 weeks and am getting ready to sign up again. It's an easy call to AT&T to get it done but I'd suggest you read some of the tips to avoid incredibly excessive data charges.

Turn off International Data Roaming and look for Wifi spots.

Then you can even use Skype to call other Skype users or get a Skype Out account.

Thanks for the helpful info! I am going to pay the $5.99 for AT&T World Traveler (reducing call charges from $1.29 to $.99 per minute), and will only use Wifi for data.

A couple of footnotes on this since I just hung up w/ AT&T to set mine up for my upcoming trip.

Text messages sent from your iPhone while in Italy will cost you $.50 each! There are no plans available to reduce the cost of text messages.

They have changed the data policy again and you can now cancel it immediately when you return. It used to be that you had to sign up for a 3-month period but now you can activate it before you leave and cancel it when you return.

This will be my 5th trip to Europe (3rd to Italy) since I got my iPhone and I've always found it helpful to have some type of data plan in place. On each trip, I've run across at least a time or two where I needed to use the data but wasn't around a Wifi hotspot.

On the plane on the way over, I reset my usage (Settings > General > Usage > Reset Statistics) and it keeps tabs on how much data usage you've had on the Cellular Network. (It doesn't count Wifi usage in that number). If you manage it that way, you can easily keep it within the minimum 20mb package.

Also, if you use it for email, set Fetch to manual (Settings > Fetch New Data) as that will eat up data quickly without you knowing it if you have it set on automatic. When you're in on a Wifi network, you can still easily check mail without using the cell network to do it.