Sim card
Jan 23rd 2018, 8:54 am
#16
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Aug 2015
Posts: 404
Re: Sim card
I signed up with Wind when I moved to Italy and have a PAYG SIM that costs €11.50/month and which gives me all the minutes & messages I'll ever need, plus 2GB of data. That's not bad although a contract would have been preferable but they were all a minimum impegno of 24 months and at that stage I couldn't commit to that long.
At the risk of gainsaying Lorna's sage advice to her kids, there are a couple of offers like "call your country" or similar which can be quite attractive for ringing "home". Also, living in a university town, I've noticed a lot of the mobile phone shops (and there are lots of them!) often have special offers for under 30s, though I've never looked at the small print of those.
Tre.it (Italy's version of Three) had similar deals to the Wind packages but fortunately I was tipped off that there's no Tre coverage in our village before I signed up with them!
At the risk of gainsaying Lorna's sage advice to her kids, there are a couple of offers like "call your country" or similar which can be quite attractive for ringing "home". Also, living in a university town, I've noticed a lot of the mobile phone shops (and there are lots of them!) often have special offers for under 30s, though I've never looked at the small print of those.
Tre.it (Italy's version of Three) had similar deals to the Wind packages but fortunately I was tipped off that there's no Tre coverage in our village before I signed up with them!
Jan 23rd 2018, 10:31 am
#17
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Oct 2016
Location: Ex Teramo, Abruzzo
Posts: 1,217
Re: Sim card
George, not too sure when it happened, but think you will find Tre and WIND are not the same... hence the same deals starting to appear. There will be little or no choice soon, bit like the UK
Jan 23rd 2018, 10:42 am
#18
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Aug 2015
Posts: 404
Re: Sim card
Yes, you're right (assuming you meant "now" and not "not"!) but I'm not sure how closely they're merging - I've not seen any changes to the shops in town.
Also, I'm not averse to having a bit less choice, I think there's too much choice in modern life at times!
Also, I'm not averse to having a bit less choice, I think there's too much choice in modern life at times!
Jan 23rd 2018, 2:35 pm
#19
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Oct 2016
Location: Ex Teramo, Abruzzo
Posts: 1,217
Re: Sim card
Yes "now" 
I think choice keeps the prices down, but I know what you mean by too much. They forever change packages and have so mny to confuse you! It seems to be the case now that they re-brand very little at first, align things, then merge proper a year or more later. Same in the UK where many companies do this. Might have been a year or more before I knew Sainsburys in the UK now had Argos and Habitat. I don't know whice phone company owns which there these days
. I wonder how the Italian companies are dealing with the regs to be able to use your allowance anywhere within the EU at the same cost? All the UK comanies seem for have different rules as to how long you can do so.
I think choice keeps the prices down, but I know what you mean by too much. They forever change packages and have so mny to confuse you! It seems to be the case now that they re-brand very little at first, align things, then merge proper a year or more later. Same in the UK where many companies do this. Might have been a year or more before I knew Sainsburys in the UK now had Argos and Habitat. I don't know whice phone company owns which there these days
. I wonder how the Italian companies are dealing with the regs to be able to use your allowance anywhere within the EU at the same cost? All the UK comanies seem for have different rules as to how long you can do so.
Jan 24th 2018, 7:03 am
#20
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Aug 2015
Posts: 404
Re: Sim card
When I was back in the UK over Christmas, I just used my Wind phone as I normally would in Italy. No additional charges unless I exhausted my normal allowances.
When we moved here, I had a 3 phone and that allowed me to use it as I would in the UK which was really handy whilst we were getting set up in Italy.
Another handy thing was to get a mobile internet dongle, which provides a portable wifi connection and meant that I was able to get online at home whilst TIM got round to setting up our connection. This was vital as I'm self-employed and need the internet at home for work. Would recommend investigating it to anyone who's finding their landline-based connection problematic. Only downside tends to be that download/upload allowances can be a bit limited.
When we moved here, I had a 3 phone and that allowed me to use it as I would in the UK which was really handy whilst we were getting set up in Italy.
Another handy thing was to get a mobile internet dongle, which provides a portable wifi connection and meant that I was able to get online at home whilst TIM got round to setting up our connection. This was vital as I'm self-employed and need the internet at home for work. Would recommend investigating it to anyone who's finding their landline-based connection problematic. Only downside tends to be that download/upload allowances can be a bit limited.
Jan 24th 2018, 10:46 am
#21
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Oct 2016
Location: Ex Teramo, Abruzzo
Posts: 1,217
Re: Sim card
A dongle is all we have ever used in Italy over the 8 years and the speeds have improved a lot since we first started. Our place is rural and is never likely to have landline broadband. There are a number of wifi suppliers (Wifi ADSL), but we would rather not have any other contracts here. The dongle is limited to 10gb per month, but we do not do video downloading or need it for work. There are many deals out there now for much greater limits or none at all for mobile BB, but ours is still only €12/mth, which is very cheap.
