WIND Italy - Great Deal for Travelers

few times I tried this the message failed. I think that was because my service wasn't active yet. It was a good 3 hours before I was able to send the SMS. Once the SMS went through I received several text massages in Italian with what seemed to be special offers on text and MMS bundles. I surfed a couple of pages to verify that it was working. Don't get carried away at this point because the SIM only comes with € 5.00 on it and you need to have at least € 4.00 remaining credit to activate the € 3.00 Wap No Limit deal.
Send another message to 4533 with the text: WIND NO LIMIT SI . It took a long time, about15 hours, for this to take effect. You can tell when it does because you will get a text message mentioning 3 Euro and WIND NO LIMIT. You can also check and your balance by dialing *123# to see if the 3 Euros has been deducted yet.

Using WIND in Florence worked very well. I had a strong Edge signal everywhere outdoors and in my hotel room. The signal held up pretty well in other buildings too. No glitches and the EDGE was fast enough to pull down a Google or Nokia map in about 10 seconds.

I only managed to use about 30 Euros worth of data out of the 750 surfing the web a couple of hours a day in the remaining 4 days I was in Italy. Not bad for 10 Euros total. The WIND NO LIMIT offer can only be used once a month and automatically renews every month. When it runs out you pay the regular rate the rest of the month. If your cash balance drops to zero, data stops working until you refill, even if you haven't used all the data funny money yet.

If you think you will need more than 244 MB/month WIND has other packages. The following table lists all the WIND data offers with their Euro value in "funny money" and in MB, actual cost in Euros and the text string to send to 4533 to activate. Only one of these offers can be applied per month.

Package Name € Value MB € Cost Text to 4533 to activate
Wap No Limit 750 244 3.00 WIND NO LIMIT SI
i-mode NO LIMIT 50% 1000 325 6.00 WIND NO LIMIT 50 SI
Mega 1500 1500 488 8.00 MEGA 1500 SI
Mega No Limit 8000 2600 20.00 MEGA SI
Mega 15000 15000 4882 30.00 MEGA 15000 SI

Here are a few WIND short codes and tips culled from the net. I tried all of these and they work and are free:

*123# - Balance (for texting and talking only, not data) in Euros.

SMS the word Saldo to 4155 - gets a text listing your data "funny money" balance in Euros.

How to change the voice response system to English

call 4242
When it starts with the menu in Italian press 6
At the next prompt press 2 for English
The menu will repeat in English: Info 0, Recharge 1, Balance 2 ... You can hear your data "money" balance by pressing 5.

WIND's rates for calls are pretty good too; € 0.17/minute for all calls to Italian numbers, € 0.50/minute to the US, Canada, India, the UK and most of Europe. All SMS including international are €0.12. There are all sorts of add-on packages for lower international rates, SMS bundles, cheaper calls to one number or to all WIND numbers, etc. See this page at PrepaidGSM.net for the details.

My prepaid WIND SIM even roams on ATT in the US although the voice rates are pretty bad, 2.00/minute to the US or Europe and 1.50/minute for incoming calls. Data is €0.0125 KB (12.50/MB), only a little higher than the $0.01/KB that ATT charges for casual data use.

We had a great time in Florence. It's a city you must visit for the art, wine, Cappuccino and gelato. And while you are there you can enjoy great prepaid data for a mere 10 Euros.

As for the bum SIM I picked up on eBay? I emailed the seller but he hasn't responded, I guess I'll have file an eBay and/or PayPal claim although I don't have much hope of getting my money back.

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posted by Dennis Bournique
April 4, 2008 @ 7:22 am
7 View Comments