Normally when traveling I buy an unlocked phone from ebay and purchase a SIM upon arrival, but I've read that you can no longer bring a mobile phone into Turkey to use with a local prepaid SIM unless you register it, which is a tough task. Any experience doing this?
Are cheap prepaid phones readily available in Turkey? I just want a cheap, simple phone that's small enough to carry everywhere.
The cell phone registration law allows foreigners to bring in a cell phone as long as it is registered. The problem is--I've never met anyone who can tell me where to register a phone I already have.
As a practical matter, you can use a non-Turkish cellphone with a non-Turkish SIM card on roaming with no trouble (other than a higher cost) for at least a few weeks. After a while, it won't let you connect to a Turkish cell phone provider anymore, but as long as you aren't staying in Turkey for more than a few weeks, you're fine. We've spent up to a month on our Mobal SIM and it worked fine.
If you plan to make a lot of calls, you're better off buying a Turkish phone and SIM and they will register it for you when you buy it. Ask for a "cep telefonu" which means "pocket phone"--they are ubiquitous in Turkey, even in the rural areas of Western Turkey, and cell coverage is excellent there.
Thanks JER. I won't be making a lot of calls, probably just a few, and I'll have a calling card with a local Turkish number for calling back home. How much do those cep telefonu generally cost?
I just use my ultra-cheap Mobal phone. It cost me 49 dollars about five years ago and came with a Global SIM where you purchase pre-paid minutes as you need them online. The phone will automatically look for the nearest local network (it tends to use Turkcell in Turkey. Calls are pricey--about 1 to 2 dollars a minute, depending on where you are calling. But if you don't make many or long calls, it's a good deal. (Obviously, those that use cell phones a lot should not consider this option.) You get a permanent phone number (as long as you make a call on it every year or so) so people can always know how to reach you when you're abroad. Also, there are no monthly fees to keep the phone and number activated.
So this might be a good option for you rather than buying a phone in Turkey.
Here's what we decided to do for our next trip..
Our cell phone is just for a crisis of epic porportions and if that is the situation I didn't want to worry about any minutes expiring or running out. Which could occur if we had a regular prepaid phone combined with a power/landline phone outage.
We have Sprint and they have a special international phone they sell through their website for 75.00 USD. I keep my same USA phone number and I'm just billed for minutes I use, it's good pretty much anywhere that we would travel to.
For Turkey it's 1.29 a minute. But like I said, if I'm using that phone ..I will be in a situation that I won't care how much it costs.
On the flip side I could put in a local sim card when we are in most countries (except Turkey) with no issue..so that would be another way to save money if I wanted to use the phone more.
For the rest of our communication IN TURKEY and elsewhere we are using calling cards.
