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How to Use Your Mobile or Cell Phone in Italy  Posted on - Sunday, June 05, 2011

You can always use your mobile phone in Italy if it supports GSM 900 and GSM 1800 frequencies.  However if you use your Australian provider, making phone calls in Italy could be pretty expensive. Also you will need to make sure you have international calling activated before you leave. My advice is to ignore incoming calls, only checking voice mail once a day and advise all likely callers to text you. Receiving & sending texts are a much cheaper method.

Another option, which I use — is getting an Italian SIM card. That gives you your own Italian number, which is very useful:  If you’re calling Italian numbers, you’re obviously being charged domestic rates, and your provider back home has nothing to do with it. You can email or text it to your family, friends and work contacts. It comes in very handy when trying to make museum and restaurant reservations, find out opening hours or calling a hotel to get directions.

I also make sure my Italian SIM card comes with data.  I switch my Australian SIM in an second old phone which has cellular data turned off. I use my Italian SIM in my iphone.  This allows me to use my iphone's GPS and email service.  I can also use my skype account (with skype credit) to make international calls at around 3c per minute where ever I have wifi or 3Gs service.  I also use my iphone to tether to my netbook to access the internet.

You need to make sure your mobile phone is “unlocked” in order to install a new SIM card.  I just called my provider, Three and explained I was going overseas.  You do need to do a little preparation before leaving.  In Italy you cannot buy any prepaid mobile sim card without having a "codice fiscale". What's that? In English it sounds like "fiscal code", it's a unique code for each person in Italy (and in theory in the World), which identifies that person for the Italian Fiscal department. You need the CF for any registration in Italy, and officially it's the same for sim cards, both pre and postpaid. How can a foreign person buy a sim-card? Our friends at PrepaidGSM provide a great guide. I just followed their instructions - printed out the card and took it into the Three Store near the Spanish Steps in Rome.

Buying a SIM card is a lot easier to do than it seems. Just walk into any mobile phone store (preferable in a tourist area where you are more likely to get an English speaking assistant.  Ask for a "carta prepagata" (prepaid card).  TIM,  Vodafone, Wind and Three are the most popular. You can buy one for as little as 5 euros, which gives you 5 euros worth of calls. Make sure you bring your passport and Codice Fiscale with you when you go. (Remember, if you’re non-E.U., you’re supposed to have a passport on you at all times in Italy anyway). Ask them to set you up in store as setting up the account over the phone requires a very good command of Italian. Buy a echarge voucher at the same time.

You can buy recharge vouchers at a tabacchi, supermarkets and ATMs, to “top up” your phone. Just ask for a "ricarica" and make sure you say who your provider is and how much money you want.

Another option you have is just buying an Italian mobile phone. You can get a phone, with 10 euros already loaded as credit, for as cheap as 30 euros. That way, you don’t have to worry about if your own phone is unlocked or about switching SIM cards back and forth. And if you ever travel to other countries you can switch out the SIM card and use the same phone. Because having your own Italian phone number is so handy, and so much cheaper, we generally recommend that you get your own SIM card or Italian mobile phone if you are in the country for five days or more.

But what if you haven’t bought a SIM card, or don’t want to, and you need to make a call from your home mobile phone?  Here’s how you’d do it.

1. Dial +. Your mobile phone is programmed to replace the + with the international access code that you need to dial out of your home country to another country. Every mobile phone has a + button; it’s usually the same button as the 0 or the *. To access it, try holding down either the 0 or the *, or double-tapping one of the two buttons. As I travel a lot, I always program in telephone numbers with + country code eg.  All my Sydney land line numbers are entered as +61 2  Remember to drop the 0 in the mobile numbers and area codes.  But this rule does not work for Italy

2. Dial the country code, Italy's country code is 39

3. For Italy dial the rest of the number. Include the first 0. (When calling other countries, you drop that 0).

So: If someone hands you a card that says their Italian number is 0123456789, then, from your home mobile phone, even if you’re in Italy, you dial +39 0123456789.

To call a non-Italian phone number from an Italian land line:

1. Dial 00. That’s Italy’s international access code. Remember if you’re dialing from an Italian mobile phone (or your phone with an Italian SIM), you can just dial the +, no access code needed.

2. Dial that country’s code (61 for Australia, 44 for England, 1 for Canada and the US).

3. Dial the rest of the number.

Easy!