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Recharge 3 microSIM for use in Italy

J

jtcurran

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 25, 2010
4
0
Hi all,

I can confirm that Italian 3 service works as advertised in various threads in Florence. Excellent coverage even behind the thick 16th century walls!

I am back in the UK and need some help and advice - perhaps from someone in Italy. Part of the iPad plan with 3 / Tre is free roaming in the UK. As the Italian data plan is cheaper than the UK one, I would like to continue to recharge my 3 Italy account. I have been on the tre.it website to try and figure out how to add addition Euro to the account. I am using Google to translate the pages which is a mixed bag. I have found a place to set up an account and (I think) to start the process of recharging the SIM. Unfortunately it seems to require a "number". In the Settings -> General -> About it says that the Cellular Data Number is Unknown. Any suggestions about what I can do?

Help welcomed / appreciated.

Best,

John
 
I've looked and I too can only find a login which requires a number (plus you need to be able to receive a text in order to sign up, bit of an oversight if you ask me). However, have you tried calling 3 in the UK? If I remember correctly there was something about being able to recharge overseas through 3 directly. I'm moving to Italy (at least temporarily before migrating North to go home to Germany) mid December, so if this hasn't been resolved by then I'll find out for you. But there is an Italian member here...somewhere...
 
Hi all,

I have the packaging but nothing suggests that it is the "cellular data number". I have tried every combination of numbers from the card that the microSIM poped out of.

John
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; it-it) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Sorry but I am not a 3 user, I just made a quick search.
Try internet.tre.it from your ipad on 3G
 
The iPad can't obviously receive SMS, so you can't register on the Three website, because they send you the password via SMS.

You have two options:
- Put the minisim into an iPhone or a phone that supports minisim, and receive the SMS.
- call the Three call center, which is a pain, and tell'em to send the password to your email.
- go to a Three Store and talk to a real person that will call for you and in two seconds they will send you the password. I did this one.
 
Hi BigApple2006

Thanks for your post. What I can't figure out is what to enter as the number. Nothing on the packaging sugests what it is.

Thanks for your help.

John
 
jtcurran said:
Hi BigApple2006

Thanks for your post. What I can't figure out is what to enter as the number. Nothing on the packaging sugests what it is.

Thanks for your help.

John
Click to expand...

It should be there - I need to point out that phone numbers in Italy don't necessarily start with a 0, but mobile numbers start with a 3 if I am not mistaken.
 
jtcurran said:
Hi BigApple2006

Thanks for your post. What I can't figure out is what to enter as the number. Nothing on the packaging sugests what it is.

Thanks for your help.

John
Click to expand...

The number is the mobile number associated to the SIM - Italian mobile numbers start with "3", while the country code is +39. So the full international number should be of the type +393XX-XXXXX

that's what you have to enter as number, although I think it is without the country code. It should be present on the sheet of paper they gave you when you signed up for the SIM card.
 
lozpop said:
The iPad can't obviously receive SMS, so you can't register on the Three website, because they send you the password via SMS.

You have two options:
- Put the minisim into an iPhone or a phone that supports minisim, and receive the SMS.
- call the Three call center, which is a pain, and tell'em to send the password to your email.
- go to a Three Store and talk to a real person that will call for you and in two seconds they will send you the password. I did this one.
Click to expand...

There shouldn't be any need for an SMS - once the number is entered, the system should notice that it is a data-only one and ask for an email address for further details to be sent to...
 
Hi there,

The root of the problem is I have no idea what the phone number is nor how to get access to it. It was not printed on the credit card thing that contained the sim and was not on the sim itself. Also, in the section of the the "settings" tab that is supposed to tell you the number it says unknown.

Help!

John
 
jtcurran said:
Hi there,

The root of the problem is I have no idea what the phone number is nor how to get access to it. It was not printed on the credit card thing that contained the sim and was not on the sim itself. Also, in the section of the the "settings" tab that is supposed to tell you the number it says unknown.

Help!

John
Click to expand...

didn't they give you a seperate sheet of paper with the number on it? I received that myself...
 
TheBigApple2006 said:
There shouldn't be any need for an SMS - once the number is entered, the system should notice that it is a data-only one and ask for an email address for further details to be sent to...
Click to expand...

Sadly the system doesn't recognize that you have a data-ony plan. The carrier knows the issue and keeps saying that it's working on it. :mad:
 
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