Since 80% of our customers are foreigners, either expats or the such, we have faced this dilemma every month for years so please let us clarify the scenario
There is no such as “Expats Mobile Plan” within any telco mobile company. Or at least they are very very rare.
Telcos do offer some Tourist Bundles. They are included in any European Bundle so any European number has roaming enabled in Europe with unlimited phone calls to its original country and a Data Allowance limited to a portion of the original domestic Data Plan. This solves the need for Data but does not solve the need to place and receive phone calls which are free of charge for the caller
Example: Italian Data Plan with 200gigabyte monthly in Italy but only 5gigabyte in European countries etc but if a French Mobile dials that Italian Number, an International Fare is applied and sometime this fare is not working so the international calls cannot be placed
US Telcos do offer paid Tourist Bundle like 10 USD / day for Roaming in the EU or 15 USD / day which is “fair” for tourism but totally nonsense for expats who are living abroad for like 3 or 6 o 12 months before even thinking to travel back to the US for a month or something
The second thing is that you can keep your US mobile phone, as long as you use it only on WhatsAPP or any other Internet Chat – Call App
There are 2 huge issues:
1) If you do not have any International Roaming Plan, you won’t be able to call anyone and
2) If you do have a mobile data roaming plan, you won’t be able to receive any calls from European landlines because it might be extremely expensive or either the Italian Telcos won’t allow such International Calls
The ONLY valid solution is to activate an Italian SIM or eSIM card the second you step foot on Italian soil
You need an Italian phone number whose international code is +39 so the number would look like +39 3xx xxx xx xx
All Italian mobile numbers start with +39 3, Spanish mobile number will start with either a 6 or 7 so +34 6 or +34 7 etc
The European Phone Number does not exist. We have been debating for ages about it but so far it is not existing
The Italian mobile number has to be configured as the Italian Default Data Plan, and this will allow you to have all Internet Services available for your both US and Italian number
If you have WhatsAPP already set with your US mobile number, please install WhatsAPP Business and set it with your new Italian Mobile Number
If you do not have WhatsAPP set with your US mobile number, please install WhatsAPP and set it directly with your Italian Mobile Number
Having WhatsAPP in Italy is important as having WeChat in China. You won’t be able to do much without it
We are no longer offering Mobile Numbers but we can suggest you some stores which still provide such service:
City Center – Antonino Cipolla – Electronic Mania – Via Vittorio Veneto 26 – 55100 Lucca – WhatsAPP +393939862149