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| Rent a Cellular Phone ! | |||||||
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Technology
can be a frightful thing. As with most people that I know, the clocks
on both of my VCRs are still flashing (I am almost embarrassed to
admit this since I sell electronics for a living!). Similarly, I
have found that many people are still hesitant to rent a cell phone
for their trip to Italy. The most common apprehension by far concerns
the cost of using a cellular phone. A usual remark goes something
like this: "A friend of mine rented a phone for overseas and
when he got back he had a $1000 phone bill!" or, "I heard
it's very expensive." Other fears are that a cell phone may
be difficult to use or the coverage in Italy is poor. While in the
past, these fears were justifiable, nowadays there are options that
not only are very inexpensive but are also easy to take advantage
of and extremely functional.
Until recently, having a cell phone for use in Italy was expensive and a luxury reserved primarily for the business traveler or the wealthy tourist and certainly not for the budget-minded traveler. Previously, you only had two pricey options. You could rent a phone, either at the airport or through one of the many online stores. While costs vary, you pay for renting the handset and for the minutes that you use. Usually, the fees run about US $30.-75. per week for the handset rental and the per-minute charges are anywhere from about US$1.50 up to US $4. for both outgoing and incoming calls. There is oftentimes a minimum usage charge, meaning that even if you don't use the phone, you will still have to pay a fee for the calls...that you didn't make. The second option is to go through your current cellular phone provider (providing you have one). More likely than not, even if you have a phone in the US, that phone won't work overseas since many US carriers use standards different from the rest of the world (over 180 other countries around the globe use GSM or Global System for Mobile Communications). Since your current phone probably won't work, your cell phone provider can set you up with a very expensive handset rental and then the per-minute charges are generally comparable to that of another cell phone rental outfit. With these costly options, it is easy to understand why someone would have concerns about renting a cell phone. Luckily, there is now a practical and inexpensive third alternative for having a cell phone in Italy - use the local system. 85% of all Italians use cell phones. About that same percentage use the pay-as-you-go system. By using this system, you can pay the low rates that an Italian pays, meaning, local calls are about 15 cents per minute, calls to the US about 37 cents and, best of all, you get unlimited FREE incoming calls from anywhere in the world. Sounds incredible but it's true. You simply buy what is called a "SIM" card (Subscriber Information Module card - a.k.a. "smart card") with a certain amount of call credit. The SIM card is the brain of the phone and contains information such as your phone number and how much credit you have left. Once that card becomes depleted - or even before it does - you can easily add more talk time by buying a "recharge" card at any magazine stand or convenience store (and this you can legally do). That way, you retain the same SIM card along with your personal cell phone number associated with it. The procedure of recharging a card is simple: just dial a toll free number and follow the prompts (in English) asking you to digit in the recharge code. By law, you must be a resident to purchase a SIM card in Italy. Fortunately, you can purchase an Italian SIM card through Planet Omni (www.planetomni.com) in the US. You will still need to have a handset, which you can rent or purchase as well from Planet Omni. Many people prefer to buy a handset, (which you can do for as low as US$99.), so that next time they go anywhere else in the world, all they have to do is to get a SIM card for that particular country. And some of the phones even work in the US as well as overseas, meaning that if you do happen to have a carrier using GSM, you only need to tote one phone around the world. Since cell phone rates in Italy are so low, the number of cell phones has quickly outdistanced the number of landline phones. Also, the Italian telecom providers have made sure that they can reach all potential customers, meaning that the coverage in Italy is exceptional. It virtually encompasses the entire peninsula. In fact, 99.7% of the population is in an area where there is cellular coverage. The sound quality of the GSM standard is so crisp that all major US cellular service providers either already have or are in the process of switching to the GSM system. Although the US has opted to use the 1900 Mhz band, whereas in Italy and everywhere else they use 900 or 1800 Mhz, you can get a triband phone that operates on any of these three bands. In fact, you should consider buying a triband phone. Inevitably and eventually, you will be able to go almost anywhere in the world with just one phone, then all you have to do is to slip in a local SIM card in order to take advantage of the local rates, not to mention to receive free incoming calls. If you are with a US carrier that already uses GSM, you can even do that right now with a triband cell phone. Of course, these carriers don't want you to know that nor do that. They actually modify the phones they sell to accept only their own SIM cards, so you must purchase a triband phone elsewhere. Tere are a few advantages of having a cell phone with you during your trip to Italy: 1) Inexpensive to use Since cell phone service in Italy is so good and fees are more than affordable, rather than being afraid to rent or buy a cell phone, shouldn't you be more concerned about not having one ? |
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Planet
Omni 
