Pay As You Go

Some friends (a couple) just switched their cell phones to pay-as-you-go to cut back on their bills. It makes a lot of sense for some people, especially if you have a landline home phone.

In Italy, it seems like most people go pay-as-you-go for cell phones. I know a few people who have really cheap cell phone monthly packages, but you can stack these with pay-as-you-go packages. For example, there's a "young" package that includes 1000 texts and 1GB data a month for 6 Euros, but you have to pay-as-you-go for voice minutes. There are some people I know who carry more than one cell phone from different brands, with different uses for each. One might have cheaper international rates, one might have cheaper texts.

There's also a thing in Italy (and I think in most of Europe), that you only pay for outbound calls and texts, not receiving. So you basically are paying for only half your messages and calls. For calls, you only pay if you get connected (also true in the US, I think?), so between that and the pay-as-you-go part, there's a whole "missed call" phenomenon. Like, if you are waiting for someone, they give you a missed call when they arrive, as a signal.