Roaming is miserable in Italy

[filsapia]

It seems with Smarty I get 3G only despite my APN settings being correct, when I switch to my EE SIM I get 5G.

Roaming is effectively useless in Italy as 3G is unusable in 2024.

[JJP2RidesAgain]

That’s possibly due to what’s known as “de-prioritisation” - Italian networks giving their paying customers priority over customers roaming from overseas (Yes, EE may pay more to Italian networks to avoid this, which is why you have to pay to roam with EE, if you joined them after July 2021, whereas Smarty gives you 12 GB of roaming data for free)

What will be worth trying for you is to go into your phone’s settings and manually selecting a network, rather than letting your phone automatically select one. By manually selecting a network, you may end up with a 4G or 5G connection. 

If you can, see if you connect to “Windtre” or “TIM” networks (TIM - Telecom Italia Mobile), worth a shot, may improve things for you.

[filsapia]

It seems like Windtre is the only working network for Smarty, unfortunately. I'm totally for if Smarty were to introduce a roaming add-on, so we can use our data with modern technology like 4G/5G. I only roam for a 2-3 weeks a year, so I don't mind paying a bit extra for that period of time.

As it stands, 3G may as well be aeroplane mode in the modern world.

[JJP2RidesAgain]

If you have an eSIM compatible phone, look at a dedicated travel eSIM like Airalo or Holafly, and others. 

There are many videos on YouTube about this type of service.