Freedom of speech

As usual, I wanted to get a mobile phone chip pretty fast after I arrived in Turkey. It’s really invaluable if you don’t have to hunt for a wifi and can quickly check something when roaming around all these streets.

It was a pretty funny experience to get those chips in South America, and especially to recharge them. In Turkey though, it’s a bit more difficult.

You can get a chip from any of the main telecommunication companies, and it will work for a few days – but only on your first visit to Turkey.

If you want it to work longer term, say 10-30 days as in my case, things get complicated.

The friendly salesman from Türkcell explained me the procedure… I have to go to a tax office, and pay a hefty fee of around 120 TL to register my phone in Turkey.

With this confirmation, I have to go to the police, and finalize the registration of my phone in Turkey.

With that confirmation and all the other papers, I’d have to go to Türkcell again and they’d complete the process and get my chip working.

Otherwise, without that registration, my phone would be switched off at one point, and no longer work in Turkey with a Turkish chip.

Of course, I had to register with my name, credit card info, possibly copy of ID card in most countries around the world.

But this…. Hello?

Well, in the end, I did nothing of that, and I am betting on my luck. I got a cell phone chip at the airport when my sister arrived, and they guy said it should work anywhere from 5 to 15 days, but: no promise. 70 TL for that.

It has been working ever since, 14 days. I hope it will continue to do so the last couple of days here.

turkey-twitterI don’t really know what this is for, except some kind of government control over cell phone use.

But it fits the massive interference into internet services by the Turkish government.

While Twitter is always cited, funnily – and luckily – the site works perfectly for me for some reason.

However, no YouTube and other sites, and even Google is constantly not reachable or gives really slow results. It mostly works to use another google site, but not always.

Sad to see this happen, when the country seemed to be on such a good path.

PS: Let’s bet my phone stops working after this post?