Turkey Report

[SIMCollector]

With regards registration of your phone's IMEI, I was told it was not necessary and the government website stated above I believe states that for tourists it is not necessary. I was told that if your IMEI is not registered then the SIM would be disconnected after 1 month. But this doesn't seem to have been the case for me. But at the moment, I'm not really sure whether some of my SIMs are registered or not and I don't particularly want to plug my details into the Government website in case it triggers disconnection !

[DaveRo]

Originally Posted by SIMCollector

With regards registration of your phone's IMEI, I was told it was not necessary and the government website stated above I believe states that for tourists it is not necessary.

That's not how I interpret the government website.

Here is the relevant page in English. I expect it's clearer in Turkish

I was told that if your IMEI is not registered then the SIM would be disconnected after 1 month. But this doesn't seem to have been the case for me. But at the moment, I'm not really sure whether some of my SIMs are registered or not and I don't particularly want to plug my details into the Government website in case it triggers disconnection !

I can understand that!

I assume all this also applies to dongles, BTW. Has anybody tried to register a foreign dongle - as opposed to buying a Turkish one and having it registered by the seller?

[SIMCollector]

Originally Posted by DaveRo

That's not how I interpret the government website.

Here is the relevant page in English. I expect it's clearer in Turkish
I can understand that!

I assume all this also applies to dongles, BTW. Has anybody tried to register a foreign dongle - as opposed to buying a Turkish one and having it registered by the seller?

I agree with you, the translation is not so good. I was reading this page, very early in the morning and for some reason thought registration may not be necessary.

Individual Import Applications | MCKS&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp

If your only staying for a short time then it may well not be necessary to register your IMEI. I was charged 5 Lira for the registration at a Turkcell extra store. But you get a receipt and an SMS (in Turkish) is sent to your phone, confirming registration, I beleive. Somewhere I have a copy of the actual document I completed as I requested this. But I dont think this is normally given.

On the lower part of the page in the URL above this is stated, which may refer to dongles in Turkey :

"With the web service application, records taken by subscription centers of GSM operators (Turkcell, Vodafone, Avea) are synchronously entered to the system. By this way, device can be recorded as soon as application is made. However, if any problem is identified while Telecommunications Authority is checking the documents received by GSM operators’ subscription centers the related device will be deleted from the record list. For this reason, documents given to subscription centers must be complete.

If the documents related with device and electronic identity information of device are not problematic, device information is entered to the system and IMEI number of the device is recorded. "

HTH

And if anyone know an online way of topping up a Turkcell SIM, I'd very very interested to hear !

[nomad]

Here's my experience with Turkcell using GPRS/EDGE Internet for 1,5 month - gone through most of their revenue tricks.

[DaveRo]

Does anyone have any up-to-date info about prepaid data in Turkey?

[Maxy]

Originally Posted by DaveRo

I emailed Turkcell and got this prompt reply:

When you come to Turkey, with your passport you can buy prepaid turkcell line from Turkcell extra shops.

You can also connect to the internet with this simcard by gprs.

If you connect to the internet , it costs 2 credit for every 35 kb
And also we have internet packages, they are cheaper;

Weekly internet package - 50 mb - 20 credit
Montly internet package - 100 mb - 65 credit
Montly internet package - 1 gb - 210 credit
Montly internet package - 4 gb - 290 credit
Montly internet package - 6 gb - 440 credit
Montly internet package - 8 gb - 510 credit

After you buy prepaid line you should choose one of them. You can take help about activation from Turkcell extra shop or Turkcell customer care. Our telephone number is; 4440535

About your mobile phone's imei registration; when you buy prepaid line in Turkcell extra shop , they can help you about registration. They need your passport and your Turkcell line's agreement.

I also found this webpage about Vodafone:
Vodafone Mü?teri Hizmetleri - Mobil ?nternet Kendini A?an Tarife

Click on Kendini Aşan Tarife opsiyonunu almam durumunda nasıl ücretlendirilirim? for the mobile internet tariff.

It seems to be a progressive charge: for prepaid:
- 5TL for the first 5MB
- 5TL for the next 15MB
- 5TL for the next 30MB ... etc

(At least, that's how I interpret it, but I may have missed something.)

I live in Turkey and use the various systems available here.

I have vodaphone internet on my iPhone and it costs just 9 TL for a 1gb per month tariff (but this is on a company account),

I also have several Turkcell VINN modems. The Modem currently costs 99TL and 1gb per month approx 20TL and 4gb per month 29TL. This figure is increased if its used in an iPhone. I have no idea why other than the iPhone here is £650, so you must be able to afford it! These are PAYG prices. All thats needed is cash or CC and ID (a driving licence will do, but a passport is better. They will have you setup in 10 minutes

[Maxy]

One item of caution, I use both Vodaphone and Turkcell data here in Marmaris. The Vodaphone is only Edge where Turkcell is 3G and definately has the best coverage. Even 3G in small villages.

[DaveRo]

The Turkcell prepaid (Hazir Kart) data packages don't seem to have changed much:

http://www.turkcell.com.tr/bireysel/...eri/hazirkart/

[DaveRo]

I just tried to buy a Turkcell prepaid card and register my phone today at a Turkcell shop. They copied my passport and entered the IMEI number into the computer.

All seemed to be going fine except that the SIM didn't work in the phone. This surprised the people in the shop. After much discussion and phoning their managers they declared that the phone was blocked and that it would start working after 2 days and then stop working after 10 days. This is contrary to what I expected which was that it would work immediately but stop working after 10 days unless it was registered: that was why I was registering it! I aborted the sale - a SIM that doesn't work, might work in a few days, but will then stop working after 10 days is not much use.

But I now don't know how the system is supposed to work. I'm in Turkey for 3 months. My experience suggests that you need to register your foreign phone just to use a prepaid SIM and that you can't use it for more than 10 days even if you do.

Can anybody shine any light on this?

[DaveRo]

I went back to the Turkcall shop the next day and it turned out to be a Turkish-English mistranslation.

I still don't know why the phone was found to be blocked ('closed' was the word they used) when the Turkcell SIM was first put into it. Maybe that is normal now (though the shop seemed surprised). Maybe it's because I had been using it for a week for roaming. Others have reported in the past that their phones work initially then stop working after a few weeks.

What the shop people meant was that it would take a minimum of 2 days and a maximum of 10 to register the SIM+IMEI combination and unblock the phone. On the second visit to the shop the girl spoke better English: she said "it will probably work tomorrow unless there's a problem with that phone". And it did - so it's probably an overnight data transfer between Turkcell and the computers that check the IMEIs.

The process - buying the SIM (Hazir Kart SIMPlus) and registering the phone - cost me 43TL.

When it worked I dialed 8090 to change the language to English. NOTE you also need to do this AND listen to to the message right to the end or you won't get the 20TL credit that comes with the SIM.

I subscribed to 250Mb of data in a month by sending EKO to 2222. (There are other options on the Turkcell website but all in Turkish I think.) I got an confirmatory SMS.

The APN is 'internet' - no usernames or proxies. The phone seems to have acquired a set of APNs automatically.

Sending 'KALAN INTERNET' to 2222 gives me a data balance and expiry date.

So far so good. I don't yet know how to get a TL credit balance by SMS or whether the EKO option renews automatically.