O2 International roaming speeds in Istanbul Turkey

[soulframe]

Has anyone been to Istanbul recently?

I will be going next month and was wondering what the data speed is like?

Is it worth paying the £5 a day roaming charge (staying for 5 days) or should I get a local 4G sim card?

Thank in advance

(I'm on Pay Monthly btw)

[Cleoriff]

Hi @soulframe I haven't been to Istanbul but you will need O2 Travel If you've got a Pay Monthly sim, text O2TRAVELto 23336.

It will cost £3.99 a day roaming rates. That includes calls texts and data. O2 do not have 4G roaming agreements there https://www.o2.co.uk/o2travelupdate

If, as your opening posts suggests, you are thinking of getting a local 4G sim this might work out cheaper for you in the long run

Without O2 travel you would pay standard rates http://international.o2.co.uk/internationaltariffs/travelling_abroad#

[Cleoriff · Accepted solution]

We have another old link ...The rates in Turkey are now showing as £4.99 per day according to this one

https://www.o2.co.uk/help/pay-monthly/using-your-phone-abroad#which-countries-are-included

(So please ignore the first link in my post)

@Martin-O2@Marjocould you please ask O2 to remove this 'update' from the website https://www.o2.co.uk/o2travelupdate It is out of date..!

[adamtemp64]

@Martin-O2 can the old pages be removed ? It is time o2 cleaned up all old pages linking them to revised pages 

[Cleoriff]

Agreed @adamtemp64 O2 travel is confusing enough without us (me) giving out wrong information. (I had run out of time to edit my first post)

[jonsie]

Good spot @Cleoriff

We are aware that data throttling has now been removed in Europe so data there is now usable but from reports by customers outside Europe data speeds are still poor. As far as I know I don't think we've had anyone check this out in Turkey.

Until someone can confirm data speeds are usable then a local sim may be better, though for 5 days maybe you can manage on wifi alone. 

Whichever you decide, if you need to get your phone unlocked, use the link in My O2. 

https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Other-Products-Services/Unlocking-an-O2-phone-to-use-a-different-SIM-c...

I believe @Cleoriff and @adamtemp64@soulframe that the price increase on the website is down to the fact that from 1st November this year, the government are charging vat on destinations outside the EU. The old prices all need to be amend

I have to say O2 must be the worst for amending and updating and getting rid of old/dead links so it's hard to believe how they've won website of the year for the last three years. 

[darrengf]

You won’t get blazing fast speeds in Turkey with o2im afraid. The throttling will still exists and it will get even slower if you can manage above 50MB data useage.

Traffic management still applies for every other country outside Europe

”Roaming outside The European Union
O2 Travel customers roaming outside The EU who exceed 50Mb of data per day will experience limited throughput for web browsing, e-mail, social networking, video and VPN services, which may slow these services down. O2 Travel customers’ roaming outside The EU who use Peer to Peer, file transfer, network storage or gaming applications or services, will be provided with limited throughput which will slow these services down”

Please do let us know what speeds u get.  USA seems to be getting a max 0.05Mbps up and down as per customers that have been

[adamtemp64]

@jonsie The vat issue not relevant, as if it was the 3.99 (turkey) and 4.99 would all have gone up by 20% but the 4.99 is now the only option. 

I do hope that @Martin-O2 can feed back the amount of outdated pages that can be accessed !!!

[Martin-O2]

Thanks for reporting these guys! I'll pass this along to the web team.