Some wires

A while ago I posted a long blog post about being "unwired". One of the major points of that blog was the lack of a cell phone. Well, I caved, and now have an Italian cell phone number.

(I do warn you that this may be a very techy post, so bear with me if it's not your thing and I'll try and explain it clearly)

For the first two weeks I was attempting to buy the skype phone offered by the mobile carrier 3(tre). What I found though is that the service provider 3 is not very good in Italy. I'm a tech junkie. When I go to get a new piece of technology I do my research. I had been researching cell phones abroad for months before I left. So when I went into the 3 store, I knew what I wanted and that they offered it. The salesperson disagreed with me. I was told even though it is advertised all over their website that I could not only not purchase the skypephone, but I could not get a pay as you go plan from them at all unless I signed a 24 month contract. After a frustrating argument, with the sales person speaking broken english and myself speaking very, very broken Italian, I left empty handed only to walk a block down to the TIM store, where I purchased a SIM card (I already had the phone from a friend, thanks Tim!(not TIM the cell company, Tim the person, confusing I know))

For all the non-techy readers, cell phone contracts work a little differently in Europe than in the States. You do not normally sign your freedom away to a service provider for 2 years. You instead buy a phone(cheaper than in the U.S I may add), and then buy a SIM card from one of the providers here. A SIM card is universal and can go into any phone. It is assigned your number so any phone you put your card in automatically gets connected with your number and service provider. Pretty cool huh? Well it gets better: As I mentioned, contracts don't really exist. Instead you pay-as-you-go. You put 10 euro or however much on your phone. You have an agreement with your service provider that you will pay x amount of money per minute for all calls you make. In my case, this is 10 cents a minute for every call I make. Notice how I said every call you make, because receiving calls is totally free. When you run out, you put more money on your account, either online or buying a prepaid recharge card from any "tobacco store" (tabacchi in Italian, basically a convenience store).

Now lets compare this to the American system of cell contracts. We will ignore exchange rates because for natives of the respective countries that's not important, and I'm going to refer to all currencies as dollars or $. Right now Verizon Wireless' cheapest individual plan is $40 for 450 minutes per month. That includes no text messaging, just 450 minutes of using your cell phone's main function, talking (I know hard to believe that's what they were made for, right?). I'm sure that includes free nights and weekends, but to me that doesn't really factor in, what matters is the ability to call someone at any time.

Take that same $40 and apply it to my rate. That's 400 minutes if you pay 10 cents a minute. Very similar isn't it. In fact, Verizon might even look more appealing at first glance. I think not. Those 400 minutes I have from the $40 I placed on my account, they don't disappear at the end of the month. I'm not restricted per month. Okay, so AT&T has rollover minutes don't they? So if you only use 200 minutes one month you get to keep the extra 200 minutes (we've all seen the commercials, "those minutes are still good!") Yes you get those minutes, but you are still paying $40 again that 2nd month for another 400 minutes. Now why do you need another 400 minutes if you just rolled over 200? See what I'm getting at?

$40 dollars prepaid. It lasts for as long as I need it. If I use 400 minutes a month, poof they're gone when I've used them all. If I only need 200 minutes a month, well then look at that I really only paid $20 a month. Busy month? Lots of gossip? Simply put more money into your account, for the same rate you've been paying all along. Verizon charges 45 cents per every minute you go over your monthly allowance. I might be beating a dead horse but lets do a little math. 600 minutes in a month? If you're using my prepaid service that will cost you $60. Verizon's 450 minute contract? $40 for the first 450 minutes, + $0.45 x 150 = $107.50. In other words, for less than it costs to pay for those 150 extra minutes, you could have 600 minutes on prepaid. Not to mention you don't pay for any calls received! (Sticking with the math theme: Free incoming calls > Free nights and weekends)

Phone break? Not happy with the one you have? Just want to upgrade? Sure, pick which one you want, buy it, and put your SIM card in, none of this waiting 2 years to get a new phone.

Anyone feel ripped off by their U.S. cell contract? I sure do. I'm not going to even get into the whole data/internet on phones argument, this post is already borderline rant, but for those interested one line of stats:

On ANY phone: Verizon: $15 per month for 25mb of data over the entire month, TIM: $10 a month for 50mb of data a day (You see where the rant would come in?)

The phones are better, the plans and pricing is better, and the coverage from what I've seen is the same if not better. All those ready to switch to the European system raise your hand...