Taking iPhone to Italy

Question

I'm flying to Italy next weekend for a two week trip, and instead of my PowerBook G4 I will take the iPhone. I will be using it only in WiFi mode at both of my Hotels in Rimini and Florence.
I will not use it as a "phone" or use EDGE for browser and e-mail. I will bring my old Motorola V600 GSM phone and buy a cheap local TIM SIM card to make phone calls.
Apparently to enable "EDGE" for Europe you have to call AT&T and "upgrade" your plan, or EDGE won't work, which suits me perfectly. On the other hand, regular international phone roaming is enabled by default by AT&T, so to avoid getting charged roaming fees, I won't answer any calls.
Has anyone tried to do this in Italy or any other European country?

Answer 1

I didn't think international roaming was on by
default. You can check if it's on your plan by
logging into your AT&T account and checking features.
This is what it says about my "added" features:
STANDARDINTLROAM $0.0
I think that means I have it, even if I did't ask for it..
Their system is currently down so I can't check it
myself. Do that before you leave, it's a pain to fix
when you're already there. And if you turn on your
iPhone in Europe, voice mail will still cost you even
if you don't pick up calls because the call will be
routed to Europe, then back to the US
Actually I plan to check iPhone voice mail using a local pre-paid SIM card on another cell phone.
In any case I've used AT&T international roaming and
it works fine in Italy. In fact when I stuck my SIM
card in a (European) 3G phone it worked fine over
European 3G bands.
One thing about the $6 monthly plan...you'll want to
keep it on until your charges get billed to you.
International roaming charges don't always get billed
the second you get back to the US, sometimes they
take a month or two and if the $6 plan is not on your
feature list, you'll get charged the higher rate.
Good to know.