Readers letter received from Keith Ford regarding North Cyprus Trevor’s Tips for April 2017 .
“OK an Update on Mobile Phone registration.
I just completed one today 18/05/2017.. Some of the information has now changed. First the office is now actually behind Domino Pizza bar in Lefkosa. Looks pretty new so probably hasn’t been open long.
Getting the phone paid for costs 15TL and credit cards only. This didn’t take long at all.. But there was a queue of 17 people in front of us to actually pay the tax on it. This takes an et
ernity. So take 2 tickets. One to get the documents to give to your service provider and one to pay the tax. Or you can pay the tax in the New Harbour in Girne,
This is what we did as we calculated that waiting for 17 people, we could travel back to Girne and be last in the queue. So back to Girne.
The place is in the Girne New Harbour is as far as you can go to the left as possible. It’s a two story building up the stairs and it’s the 3rd door on the right. YOU CANNOT register the phone here. Only in Lefkosa.
Next off to Turkcell to actually complete the registration. This costs 6TL and after a long wait the phone still doesn’t work. Wait 48 hours they told us. We won’t hold our breath,
Well the conclusion is just buy a phone in Cyprus and it will work the day you buy it. Took us all morning of frustration and the phone still doesn’t work..
Great news 48 hours later my phone was working to my amazement.”
Can you transfer an existing TRNC mobile number, from a UK handset, to a TRNC purchased telephone?
Hello Ian The Sim Card hold the Mobile number!
You can transfer a TRNC sim from your UK phone into a TRMC phone providing the reveiver will accept but if the new phone has a mini receiver, the sim can be clipped.
Remember before you do this to have all your contacts etc copied from your old to your new phone.
Were you waiting by your computer?! We have this situation – an old UK mobile. However, after three months it will no longer function – need to register etc… Easier, as you say, to buy a cheap mobile here! Once again thank you for rapid response – not used to that after fourteen years here!
Thank you Ian,
It sounds like you will need to have your sim clipped and Turkcell did this for me when I transfeerd my sim from one phone to another. If you buy the phone from them perhaps they will copy over all your information for you.
Off to Girne on Wednesday. Thank you again!
A sudden thought, UK phones using new TRNC sim’s had to be registered around April last year so if you have been using a UK phone for a few years with a TRNC sim it will should have been registered automatically.
When you go to Turkcell, talk to customer service and they can tell you if your phone is registered. We have 2 UK phones that had been registered automatically so we did not need to go through the registration process.
Check out our Editors note in this article and it will tell you how your can check to see if your phone is registered already.
http://cyprusscene.com/2017/01/21/north-cyprus-and-foreign-mobile-phone-registration-update/
I was told by Turkcell in Girne to go to Lefkosa. Address? Shrug!
It was my last day in TRNC, so no chance.
My UK purchased phone will now be blocked when I return in July.
Í’ve not noticed, but is there anywhere in Girne that sells 2nd hand registered phones, or do I have to buy one from Turkcell?