Turkmenistan

This article is under construction now.

Basics
Turkmenistan is extremely Asian difficult country, probably a candidate for our Greylist. Ruled by the Great Serdar (Chief), the white-marble Asgabat is like a far oriental tale - practically inaccessible and unachievable.

Country code is +993.

Two main operators: state-owned Altyn Asyr ("TM CELL" trademark) and russian-owned MTS TM.

VERY strict registration policies applied, comparable to their strict visa requirements. Without long-term residence permit it can be hard to buy the SIM card, but sometimes it is possible to buy it from locals or ask a dealer to solve the problem without all paperwork (usually works in small shops).

Altyn Asyr (TM CELL)
This is the biggest and oldest operator of Turkmenistan. State-owned, works under TM CELL trademark. Their 3G coverage is pretty good and reliable all over the country, 4G is in active development nowadays but already available for all users.

Availability
SIM cards not widely sold - you should visit their office in order to become a subscriber. They usually require passport, visa and address confirmation (registration) in Turkmenistan.

List of their offices where a SIM card can be purchased

New prepaid starter pack costs 10 TMT (Turkmen Manats), with 5 TMT cost of the package and 5 TMT as pre-loaded credits. When ordering, you will need to fill an application form with your personal data details, passport and visa details.

You can choose any available prepaid plan, for example, "Sada" (good plan without any monthly or daily fee). There is also a special data-only plan "3G Internet" (do not worry, it allows 4G too) with lower basic data rate, but it has a daily fee of 0.07 TMT every day. So, better choose another one.

Data price and bundles
Basic data price for almost all prepaid plans is 0.15 TMT per 1 Mb.

To reduce the data price, you should add a monthly data pack. All data packs are valid for 30 days. To check the remaining traffic of the purchased bundle, send a blank (empty) SMS message to 0805.

Unused traffic from the bundle expires after 30 days. Bundles are not self-recurring - you need to activate another bundle for next month by yourself. Bundles are valid for all prepaid plans. After using all the bundle or after expiration of the bundle, default basic data rate is applied.

Recharging
There is no way to recharge online. You can pay by cash in TM CELL offices, buy a recharge voucher (refill card) in many shops in Turkmenistan or try to use Turkmen ATMs with your credit card, but it is not guaranteed.

To recharge with the voucher, dial *0808 and press "call" button. Now you can choose the language: 1 for Turkmen, 3 for Russian. It was also "2" for English, but it is not working now. After the greetings mesasge, dial the voucher code and press "#" then "1" to finish.

Useful information

 * Support service line: 088 from TM CELL phones, +993 12 93-20-26, +993 12 93-02-79 (international)
 * APN: gprs.tmcell, login and password should be empty.
 * Online dashboard (self-service system): https://hyzmat.tmcell.tm/ (Turkmen and Russian languages only)