Family (4 x phones) travel to Italy... have to leave Public Mobile?

[cmariotti]

I have a family of 4, each with their own Public Mobile account...

We need to travel to Italy shortly and it seems that Public Mobile have zero options for travel to Europe. Which means, that we need to move to another mobile provider. Obviously prices in Italy are very cheap, unfortunately, at least two of the four phones require text and phone service... so using a local SIM isn't really an option.  Any suggestions to solve this issue?

[LeePublic]

You can buy local Italy SIM cards and use those in your existing phones, they'll be much cheaper than using any of the roaming services other providers use.

[iliketotalk]

@cmariotti yes get a travel sim or local sim when you are traveling it will save you mucho dollars over moving to one of the big three 

[cmariotti]

I said that I could NOT use local Italy SIM due to requirement to continue having Text and Phone calls (on the canadian phone number).

[walker1]

@cmariotti 

Use a VoIP app like Fongo or Text Now and get a Canadian phone number to use when you have access to wifi.

Then forward calls from other phone number.

[cmariotti]

Should clarify, two of the phones require CANADIAN Text messaging and Phone Calls (inbound)... One is business, other is medical...

[walker1 · Accepted solution]

Sounds like you're going to have to go to one of the Tier 1 phone providers since those phone calls and texts are important to you.   An expensive option though.

Mama Mia!

[liuxinbing]

If it is that important, then you have to sign up with Tier 1 / Tier 2 companies with Roam like Home for $15/day. This is the only option. Forget about Tier 3 companies such as Public Mobile or Lucky.

[cmariotti]

Thank you, I think that is my only option... might switch back later... might not.

[softech]

@cmariotti  Only only 2 members might need the roaming, you can also just port the 2 members to Koodo or Telus and leave the other 2 with PM

As you aware, using local sim is much cheaper, so you can have the other 2 members to have local sim cards and start a hotspot to share data for the other "roaming" members to save some roaming data charge.