myself and hubby retiring to turkey in the summer. does anyone know how long it takes to get telephone and broadband connected? how much does it cost?

Phone line is very easy to get. It will take a week or ten days if there are already phone lines in that area.

Getting broadband is an unclear issue. These days it's not terribly bad but the connection quality and speed is just terrible. It is so bad even this alone can be a factor for some people to chose to live abroad.

Long time ago I waited two years in Ankara (the capital city) to get broadband. I was spending a third of my teacher's sallary on dial up connections. Did you know that we have the most expensive phone calls, dial up connections, broadband, electricity and oil prices in the world. Not many people know these things.
The reason is that the Turkish government hardly collects any tax from income and therefore they chose to collect the indirect taxes via these public services.

Broadband still isn't available everywhere in Turkia. You can check here with a phone number. You need to know a phone number from that area. Put area code in front:
example for Ankara (312 is the are code of Ankara): 3121234567

http://www.turktelekom.com.tr/webtech/default.asp?sayfa_id=194

Prices are different for limited and unlimited adsl.
Limited is as follows:
512 KB speed > 3GB limit > 25 YTL (19 USD)
512 KB speed > 6GB limit > 43 YTL (33 USD)
512 KB speed > 9GB limit > 61 YTL (46 USD)

Unlimited connection is as follows:
512 KB speed > 88 YTL (67 USD)
1 MB speed > 150 YTL (114 USD)
2 MB speed > 239 YTL (182 USD)

There is also a 52 YTL (40 USD) connection fee for all tarifs. Of course you need to buy your adsl modem yourself and set up connection as well.

I now have a 4MB unlimited connection in the UK (two times faster than the fastest in Turkia) and it costs me 25 Pounds (44USD). If I wanted I could get 10MB for ten pounds more but I'm extremely happy with my connection.

Another detail is reliability. Sometimes a cable under the Egean Sea (maybe Mediterranean) gets cut of and almost all the internet connection to the outer world brakes down. It has happened a few times in the last few years and when it happnes it lasts one month.

I hope I could give you an idea about internet connections and a little more in Turkia. By the way a teachers sallary is around 750 YTL (571 USD) in Turkia and we havent yet talked about electricity and phone calls. Have a nice day.

Thanks for that very informative reply. It certainly won't put us off, we'll just have to go with the flow as they say.Trust me you think Turkish ammenities are expensive,you would'nt want to be here in Ireland where we have double taxation and many people find it difficult to maintain a good standard of living. The reason we consider Turkey a great place to retire to is a feeling of peace and tranquility,the slow pace of life, the lovely people we have met and value for money. It is terrible to work hard all your life and then struggle to make ends meet at the end of it, so we consider ourselves very lucky to be able to go and live in Turkey.