Telecomitalia on line - and how to change requirements

Hi Mick chick............. A very good question which unfortunately I am not able to help with directly, other than to say that, on the surface, the 187.it website is very good, but..............., the automation takes over to the point of exasperation (at least it did for me recently). After three weeks(online) and many phonecalls (to humans)...........all recognised on the 187.it website, (my Italian is limited ), I had to resort to asking a friend to 'sort it'. TWENTY FOUR hours later, problem was resolved! It may well have been a combination of my three weeks of teeth gnashing and the final human conversation from an  'Italian'...............but my word, what a pain. The very best of luck............ S

I signed up to the Internazionale online without any probs - so it's certainly worth a try.  And saves a fortune in calls all over Europe.  I don't think there are any limitations ......

I've had best results by going to the Telecom Italia shop in person. I guess it depends what your nearest branch is like but the two branches I've used both did the necessary with no problems.

We've been using this for 3 years now and it's a godsend for phoning family and friends in UK, Gibralta and America. It is such good value and there are no limits. Also use Skype which is of course free but not all have access to PC or have good enough signal. It is easy enough to order services online with Telecom Italia but changing or cancelling them is a different matter. I think we wrote to them in the end... 

Skype every time for me! We have family in Italy (with parents of over 90 who definitely do not have computers only regular phones), children in the UK and, for the moment, in Spain. We use Skype computer- to-computer to contact the kids – that’s free – and Skypeout to talk to unreconstructed relatives. This last caper used to cost us €1/hour until a Swiss friend told us about an arrangement you can have with Skype. It costs us around €5 a month and we get “free” time for as long as we like to wherever we like as often as we like - I talk for a minimum of 30 minutes every day with my mum in Italy. Check the Skype website to see what countries this covers. Our phone bills in Belgium before we did this were horrendous, they looked like phone numbers and not phone bills! Now, we only get the smallest of Belgacom bills to cover local calls and other tariffs which they apply just for the pleasure of it. When we’re in Italy, we just log on with our usual Skype name and the arrangement continues to work there too.

If you pay annually rather than monthly you get a further discount.  Just renewed mine in April.  Furthermore you get the option to buy a number at half price.  I couldn't buy an Italian number as you had to confirm you lived in the city to which the number belonged and very few places in Italy were available (certainly not Ripatransone).  With a UK number you don't have to confirm you live there so I just selected a Cambridge number as used to live near there.   Our friends/family in UK can ring the Cambridge number and just be charged a local call or if not local to that area we call them back on their landline.  You do pay for mobiles and the other downside is if you have a UK number it is no good for Italian friends to call you on - they have to call us on our mobiles, or we have to call them. 

1.  I just talk via my laptop - no phone - use laptop speakers/microphone.  I also have a plug in headset but gets to hot for this in the summer.  I don't know what type of phone you have but I would expect that you would need a new one - depends if the one you have is skype enabled.  Someone more technical will no doubt help you on this. 2.  You don't have to have a number at all.   If you skype to skype you have a skype name which you create.  You only have a number if you buy one and want people to call you.  You can call out to other landlines or mobiles using skype credit and still just need your skype name to sign in.  The number is optional but if you are planning to replace a landline and want to receive calls from people without internet/skype then you need to buy a number. 3.  I think is covered by previous post. 4.  I am not technical so quoting volume is not possible.  I find that most of the time there is no delay and quality of call is excellent.  However this does depend on your internet link and occasionally skype goes a bit mad (recent issues meant unable to access for a day or so until a fix was made).  5. Again this is covered by previous post.  Depends on your subscription but my unlimited Europe package is just that - unlimited I can call as often as I like for as long as I like to any landline in Europe for my one off annual charge.  You can if you prefer just have monthly or (from memory) quarterly subscription but I chose annual as I have no landline, live here permanently and the 12 month deal offers the best discount/value.

Just another thought.  How do you get your internet?  If you have Alice with Telecom Italia you are obviously going to need to replace that with some other internet provider.  Before you disconnect your telephone (and internet) check your internet options/costs.  I use a Vodafone dongle on contract and it costs me €60 every 2 months.  I have no choice in this as Vodafone offers best reception/signal and I spent more than a year trying to get TI to even give us a quote for a landline.  Before we moved into countryside we lived in Town and had TI/Alice for broadband and still used skype for overseas calls. 

Sprostoni, check with your internet provider that yo ucan plud a SKYPE phone into the router. Not all of them provide VOIP services or charge extra to let you.