Pica

Hi, After 11 years I feel I should get an Italian simcard for my ancient iphone. I hardly ever use the phone but it could be useful to be italian. Any recommendations please for PAYGO?

Geordieborn

I would see what the best reception is where you are most likely to use it and then look at that company. Both TIM and Wind were good when we were in Castilenti and surrounding areas. One to watch out for is the sim being killed off if never used. Can't recall the duration for the two of them, but it was something odd like 11 month for one of them We only used the sim for the likes of companies insisting on an Italian number and sometimes never used it for months. It was easy enough to revive if done on time, but did cost of course.

philat98

Very give you unlimited sms, calls and 50GB dats for €5.99.
Iliad have 2g only for €4.99.
I would buy a smsrtphone. Quite a useful gadget with green cards, Spids and Pecs becoming more important.

ganastasia

Agree with Philat re, SPID and Italian businesses in general. I bought a Very sim for my iPhone. It can support 2 sims so I have my UK and italian numbers in one phone. I top it up with 5.99 as/when I need it.

philat98

I use a 130GB Very Sim card with an LTE modem for domestic internet access.

modicasa

Find out which is the best coverage in your area. If theyre all much of a muchness Id say Iliad. There are lots of smaller providers which tend to be here today gone tomorrow, the big 4 are here to stay (until the Americans who buy TIM ruin it even further and sell it off).

philat98

This is a good site that shows where the transmitters are for each operator. Wind have a mast near my village so the Very signal is maximum in my house.
https://lteitaly.it/public/map.php#7...1728/12.327575

MDW

We have Iliad for mobile phones and a back up dongle, and Very for the laptop. Both have been excellent with very good speeds and coverage. Personally I would avoid Vodafone Italy at all costs - non-existant customer care and service and the worst company i have ever had to deal with.

scrubbedexpat142

Butting in from Hungary - interesting comment about Vodafone. They took over our ISP 4 years ago and it has been a disaster (for customers)!

philat98

PAYG mobile services in Italy can be changed very easily if you dont like what you have.

scrubbedexpat142

Same here but Vodafone took over the only ISP we can currently subscribe to in our district. Hopefully that situation will change soon.

Pica

Thank you all. looks like a new smartphone is on the cards. Anyone willing to recommend one that will only be used to access sms's etc?

MDW

Should have mentioned our problems with Vodafone were with fixed line/internet not mobile network.

For the smartphone we have Motorola G7 and are quite happy. If you aren't going to use it much go for a new but superceded model.

philat98

I have a cheap Huawei P10 that I bought on Ebay. I find the Wifi hotspot and camera useful. My partner has an Iphone and it doesnt do anything much better.

modicasa

Unieuro sell cheap smart phones from 50 euros. I can recommend the Xiaomi 9 which are now 100 euros and is a dual sim phone.