Nick was just asking me a question about cell phones.  Here’s my quick take.

I’d definitely get a rechargeable SIM card when you get to Italy.  It will be MUCH cheaper to call within Italy and to the US.  In order to be able to use a European SIM card with your US phone you will need to make sure that the phone is “unlocked”.   Based on our experience:

- If you have T-Mobile call them and tell them that you want to unlock the phone.  They usually without any issues.

- If you have ATT call and ask.  I don’t know what the latest is, they actually tended to not let you unlock a phone.

- if you’re o Verizon or Sprint you’re out of luck, since their phone don’t work in Europe.  If ATT does not let you unlock phone you will be in this bucket as well.

So what do you do if you don’t have T-Mobile.  The easiest thing (and still the cheapest) is to just get a phone when you get there.  Here’s a link to TIM:  http://www.tim.it/consumer/c365/i3368/ricercaprodotti.do?vism=true&idsm=-1&13389=13390&1686=1687

You can see that there are bunch of phone selling for 40euros.  This is still way cheaper than calling using your regular phone or using cards.

The alternative is that you buy an “unlocked GSM phone” on ebay or one of your friends can loan one.

If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask!