Calls to Mobiles in Italy

Sarahone

I will be shortly moving to Southern Italy and will not have a landline connected straight away (apparently it is very expensive to have a landline and we will be in a very rural location). I am interested to know the cheapest way for the UK to contact me on potentially an Italian mobile. Alternatively is it cheaper to have a UK mobile? Would very much appreciate any help with this.

sergeant121

It'll be far cheaper for you to get an Italian mobile and for them to call you for 15p/minute via call18866.co.uk or call1899.co.uk (see the MSE Callchecker).

pandapone

I'm out in Italy 7 weeks every summer we have a house out there. What I did was to rummage through our drawers at home and found an unused ex Orange Nokia and an ex Sainsbury's pay as you go nokia. The latter are unlocked. The former was locked but it is not difficult to find the unlocking codes on the web and I unlocked it. In our local telecom shop in Italy they sold me 2 TIM Sim cards for about £15 each. They could have unlocked the locked Nokia as well. So we pay Italian phone rates in Italy and we didn't even have to buy a phone - new phones can be expensive - most hypermarkets have second hand ones. You can get second hand or cheap older models on Ebay. We set the wife's parents up by registering their number on my 18866 account so they phone us for about 12 p a minute on the mobiles. We do have an Italian landline - they are expensive and you get billed every 2 months (the norm in Italy) I've never checked but I don't think they are hugely more expensive for the line rental - its just that they don't have cheap telecoms as we do here so calls cost a packet. If you do get one - don't hire the telephone handset - buy your own - and look into subscribing to a "call-back" service in the UK like just-phone.co.uk for phone calls home from the landline. The in-laws phone us on the landline with 18866.com for 2p a minute.

sergeant121

pandapone wrote:

The in-laws phone us on the landline with 18866.com for 2p a minute.

Which they could do for half that on:

Ratebuster 1p/min (08447202020) or
Telesavers 1p/min (08448615252) or
CheapestCalls 1p/min (08448611313)

pandapone

sergeant121 wrote:

Which they could do for half that on:

Ratebuster 1p/min (08447202020) or
Telesavers 1p/min (08448615252) or
CheapestCalls 1p/min (08448611313)

Agreed - they could - but being in their 60's it was difficult enough getting them to remember to dial 18866 before the number!! As for checking the Call rate checker on here - W hat is the internet? they would say!

sergeant121

pandapone wrote:

Agreed - they could - but being in their 60's it was difficult enough getting them to remember to dial 18866 before the number!! As for checking the Call rate checker on here - W hat is the internet? they would say!

You malign the silver surfers reading (and writing) this.