Travelling to Turkey |
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Phone Card / calling home
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| 20. |
03 Nov 2007 Sat 06:56 am |
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My Samsung from T-Mobile was about $150 with a 1 year contract. It is a quad-band and worked all over Turkey. Incoming and outgoing calls. Everywhere I went I had some sort of connection. Avea and Vodaphone were the companies who provided service. T-Mobile sent me the bill, it was like $1 per minute or something...so really only good for emergencies, or if you absolutely positively have to speak to someone in your native language. That happened to me after about 14 days of nothing but hearing Turkish! 
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| 21. |
03 Nov 2007 Sat 08:53 am |
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Quoting mey0722: Does anyone know how much a phone card costs in Turkey to call the U.S.? I read I can buy one at the PTT (post office). How much per minute do you think it will cost to call the U.S. and are there any other fees involved? If I use my cell phone over there, it will be $1.49/minute (US Dollars). Can I find anything cheaper using a phone card? Also, are the connections okay? Where is it best to call from - a pay phone on the street or where?
Thank you,
Aminah. |
I bought the card over there and a used cell phone last time i went. Which was about 30 lira for the phone and 15 - 30 for the phone card. Countours are like credits but they go very fast!!!
The only thing is. If you want to use a phone from the US or Canada there is a waiting period of about 2 - 3 weeks until the phone would come online.
This past time I bought a card but it didnt work just like my girlfriend's phone from the USA. It took her two weeks till her US phone started to work. And it has to be registered.
The other thing to do is buy a long distance phone card and use it in the public phones over there. The phone card was only about 6 lira and i talked for about minimum 20 - 30 minutes and that was calling Canada.
Lots of choices
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| 22. |
03 Nov 2007 Sat 09:55 am |
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I suppose the choices you take depend on how long you are staying. Certainly if your own mobile is roaming once in Turkiye then it will cost you a firtune because you are charged for incoming items too. While I was there I bought a phone card to be used on a street call box, it cost around 10 YTL and lasted over half an hour to the UK. On my last trip I was there for a month so I went to the local Turcell outlet with my passport and registered my mobile phone (you have to do this to get a sim card). I then bought a sim card for 25 YTL. 100 kontors (units) costs around 15YTL and each text I made to UK (standard length) cost 3 YTL. If the text is long then it will charge in multiples of 3YTL. Texts sent to other mobiles within Turkiye were 2YTL. One thing you should make sure of before you register your phone is, make sure your phone has been unlocked so that it will accept any sim card. Mine wasn't so I had to find a back street shop to do it for me as Turkcell wouldn't. It cost around 25YTL which is about the same as it would have cost in the UK.
Another option for you is to surf the net as there are some organisations that offer cheap mobile use whilst abroad. I may take this option next time. I think i-to-i do something like this but there are other places. If I remember where I saw it I will let you know.
Hope this information helps.
One more thing. If you have trukish friends they can transfer kontors to you via their phone. My friend regularly sent 70 kontors (the maximum to be transferred in one go) and it was very useful if I was getting low and could not get to a turkcell outlet. The other useful thing is it will let you go to minus 19 before cutting out, good in an emergency. When you top up again it just takes away the 19 defecit.
Hope you enjoy Turkiye as much as I do.
regards
Kim
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