Travel Technology - SIM card for Italy, France, & Czech Rep.

So, I'm visiting the aforementioned countries later this year and wanted to have a cell phone so I got a cheapo phone on ebay but I'm trying to decide which provider(s) to go with. I'm spending an equal amount of time in each country, although maybe a bit more in Italy. I've been able to look up prices for both country specific and Europe-wide SIM cards but I don't know how good the service is with any of the providers. I plan primarilly to recieve international calls and make mostly calls within Europe, some country to country as well. What would my fellow FTers recommend?

I bought a TIM SIM in Italy a couple weeks ago. Didn't try roaming with it, as when I left for ZRH I took it out. Very good service as far as I could tell. Cost me 20 Euros I think, with 5 of credit.

I got a Eurotel SIM when I was in CZ earlier this year. I had no issues with their service. There are Eurotel stores all over Prague and you can buy the top-up cards at most newsstands.

As I recall, the rates for outbound calls were very reasonable in CZ but fairly high for international.

You'd need one SIM card for each country. It's expensive to call from one country to another. And there isn't one where there is a flat rate for all.

But in any case, ANY GSM service is better than what backdated cell phone technology you get in the USA!

I currently live in Italy. Depending on where you go, you can buy a new Italian SIM card for less than €20 and they almost always have €5 credit on them. THe three big companies are TIM, Vodafone, and 3. TIM and Vodafone have the largest and most powerful networks so choose one of them. If and when you need to recharge your account, look for a Tabacchi that has the TOTOBIT machine. This allows you to pay the Tabacchi and they enter in the amount into the machine and it auto-recharges your phone for you without having to call the number and fumble through the instructions in Italian.