Türkiye is Still Waiting for 5G but 4.5G (LTE-Advanced) is Working Great

Couple of years back, Turkey officially changed its name to Türkiye and as such we will refer to them by their new name. 

Türkiye continues to develop its capabilities within its telecom sector, becoming one of the relatively few countries able to build and develop its own communications satellites. With the successful launch of the Turksat 5A and 5B satellites in 2021, the country has vastly increased its bandwidth capacity. These satellites will be joined by the Turksat 6A in early 2023.

In addition to these technological breakthroughs, the country’s operators have invested in fibre infrastructure, with Vodafone Türkiye having trialled a 1Tb/s service in late 2021 to support its 5G network backhaul and improve the quality of its fixed infrastructure.

Deployment of fibre-based broadband networks are well established, with fibre accounting for 26.7% of all fixed broadband connections as of early 2022. The DSL sector still dominates, accounting for about 63% of connections, but its share is steadily declining, year-on-year, while the number of fibre connections has grown strongly.

Improved fixed and mobile infrastructure is underpinning the country’s initiatives relating to Smart City concepts, which have become a key area of focus for the emerging digital economy and the transformation to a knowledge-based economy. Türkiye's National Smart Cities Strategy and Action Plan runs through to 2023.

There are three network operators in Türkiye : Turkcell, Vodafone and Türk Telekom (formerly called Avea).  

In 2015 the Turkish regulator auctioned off licenses on 800, 900, 1800, 2100 and 2600 MHz bands for 4G/LTE (Bands 3, 8, 1 and 20) . All three providers launched 4G/LTE in 2016. It has been marketed from the start as "4.5G", otherwise known as LTE+ or LTE Advanced, accelerated by carrier aggregation where available in major cities in all 81 provinces from the start. Coverage is generally quite good: Turkcell has the best, followed by Vodafone and Türk Telecom with the least.

The Turkish Government sought to be an early adopter of 5G, but plans have stalled and 5G spectrum has not even been auctioned at the time of writing this blog. European Commission's Türkiye 2023 Report notes that there was no progress reported in the procurement of 5G. Türkiye still needs to allocate additional frequencies for the development and predictability of the sector. In 2022, 94.1% of households had access to the internet, increasing from 92% the previous year.

In Opensignal's latest Türkiye Mobile Network Experience report, Turkcell wins five awards outright out of eight recognitions available, it retains both speed awards and Video Experience, while it also claims two newly introduced awards Live Video Experience and Coverage Experience. Türk Telekom turns two joint wins for Games Experience and Availability into outright victories, as Turkcell slips off the podium for both of these metrics. On top of these two wins, Türk Telekom is the sole recipient of Consistent Quality. For the third time in a row, Vodafone wins no awards, either outright or jointly.

Turkcell is the biggest operator in the country with the best coverage nationwide. 2G is on 900 MHz, 3G on 2100 MHz. In 2015 Turkcell’s population coverage was at 99.8% in 2G and 95% in 3G.

Turkcell launched their "4.5G" LTE in 2016 using tri-band aggregation of 800, 1800 and 2600 MHz frequency bands. 4G/LTE is free to prepaid. Turkcell is known to have the best coverage in the countryside.  

According to Statista, as of the second quarter of 2022, Turkcell’s mobile business had a market share of 41.3%, ahead of Vodafone at 30.4 %, and Turk Telecom at 28.3%. According to the company’s own figures, it had 42 million subscribers across fixed and mobile in Q2 2023; the mobile subscriber base reached 37.6 million in the same quarter.

In 2016 Türk Telekom rebranded its mobile network from Avea, but you see their old sign still sometimes. It's the smallest provider in Turkey in terms of coverage, but they have still good speeds in the cities and a fair coverage in the countryside.

2G is on 900 and 1800 MHz, 3G on 2100 MHz, 4G/LTE was launched in 2016. It still has the lowest coverage in the countryside, but is strong in cities.  

Türk Telekom serves more than 15 million broadband and 25.6 million mobile subscribers. As the company plays a critical role in leading Turkey's digital transformation, they sought to modernize their infrastructure supporting business-critical systems, including core billing and charging applications and databases.

Vodafone is the 2nd operator in terms of coverage. 2G on 900 MHz, 3G on 2100 MHz, 4G/LTE was launched in 2016. It has a good coverage in the country, slightly worse than Turkcell, but better than Türk Telekom.

The number of Vodafone Turkiye's mobile subscribers reached 25.4 million, by November 2023, the total number of mobile subscribers including M2M (Machine Inter-Machine Communication) reached 29.3 million . The company increased the number of postpaid subscribers to 19.1 million. While having 1.4 million fixed broadband subscribers.

Related Posts: 

• Operator Watch Blog: 5G Development Strategy & Plan of Turk Telekom
• Operator Watch Blog: Turkey Plans 5G Rollouts in 2021 with Demand Expected from 2022 Onwards
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Turkcell Marks a 'First in the World in 5G' with Domestic Drone Technology
• Operator Watch Blog: Turkcell Group in 5 slides
• The 3G4G Blog: 4G / LTE by stealth 

5G Development Strategy & Plan of Turk Telekom

Founded in 2011, Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI) has been dedicated to constructing a robust ecosystem of TD-LTE, speeding up the commercialization of TD-LTE and promoting the convergence of LTE TDD and FDD. Today, GTI has become an influential cooperation platform with global presence with operators and key vendors, and has completed the GTI 1.0 mission by building an end-to-end TD-LTE ecosystem and achieving global commercialization of TD-LTE and converged LTE TDD/FDD.

As the newest member of GTI, Ahmet Fethi Ayhan, Network Director at Turk Telekom, had the opportunity to share Türk Telekom's 5G roadmap and network transformation with the world's leading industry representatives at the 38th workshop held in Istanbul.

His talk is embedded below:

Related Posts: 

• Operator Watch Blog: Turkey Plans 5G Rollouts in 2021 with Demand Expected from 2022 Onwards 

Turkey Plans 5G Rollouts in 2021 with Demand Expected from 2022 Onwards

 

It's been 3 years since we last wrote about Turkey. Turkey’s telecoms sector continues to make great strides with its 5G implementation. The operators have conducted significant trials, largely supported by Ericsson and Huawei. LTE networks are already well established across the country, providing population coverage of over 93%. Many base stations have been upgraded to LTE-A.

Deployment of fibre-based broadband networks are also well underway in Turkey and while DSL services are still the leading fixed broadband access method - it will eventually lose its dominance due to the rapid growth in fibre subscriptions.

Turkey’s fixed and mobile infrastructure will help to underpin its Smart City initiatives, which have become a key area of focus for the future. Turkey recently released its National Smart Cities Strategy and Action Plan which will run for 3 years, between 2020-2023

BuddeComm notes that the outbreak of the Coronavirus in 2020 is having a significant impact on production and supply chains globally. During the coming year the telecoms sector to various degrees is likely to experience a downturn in mobile device production, while it may also be difficult for network operators to manage workflows when maintaining and upgrading existing infrastructure. Overall progress towards 5G may be postponed or slowed down in some countries.

On the consumer side, spending on telecoms services and devices is under pressure from the financial effect of large-scale job losses and the consequent restriction on disposable incomes. However, the crucial nature of telecom services, both for general communication as well as a tool for home-working, will offset such pressures. In many markets the net effect should be a steady though reduced increased in subscriber growth.

There are three network operators in Turkey: Turkcell, Vodafone and. Türk Telekom (formerly called Avea).

Like in Europe, 2G GSM is on 900 and 1800 MHz, 3G on 2100 MHz. Nationwide Turkcell has the best coverage, followed by Vodafone and Avea. If you stick mainly to the cities, it does not make any difference which of the three providers to choose.

In 2015 the regulator auctioned off licenses on 800, 900, 1800, 2100 and 2600 MHz bands for 4G/LTE (Bands 3, 8, 1 and 20) . All three providers launched 4G/LTE in 2016. It has been marketed from the start as "4.5G", otherwise known as LTE+ or LTE Advanced, accelerated by carrier aggregation where available in major cities in all 81 provinces from the start. Coverage is generally quite good: Turkcell has the best, followed by Vodafone and Türk Telecom with the least.

According to the recent report by Open Signal, Turkcell was to be the dominant operator across the majority of their network experience metrics. Turkcell managed to win in four out of their seven award categories — 4G Coverage Experience, Video Experience, Download and Upload Speed Experience — and each one of them by a large margin. The operator also came close to challenging its peers in the remaining three, but failed to beat Türk Telekom on Voice App and Games Experience, as well as Vodafone on 4G Availability.

Turkcell is the biggest operator in the country with 34 million mobile subscribers and 46.8 percent of the market share. 2G is on 900 MHz, 3G on 2100 MHz. In 2015 Turkcell’s population coverage was at 99.8% in 2G and 95% in 3G. Turkcell launched their "4.5G" LTE in 2016 using tri-band aggregation of 800, 1800 and 2600 MHz frequency bands. 4G/LTE is free to prepaid. Turkcell is known to have the best coverage in the countryside.

Turkcell has transformed its LTE and 5G voice network into 100% virtual infrastructures using Mavenir’s cloud-native, NFV-based IMS solution. Mavenir’s Virtualized IMS (vIMS) solution is designed to support LTE use cases and evolve into a fully web-scale platform that can meet growing requirements.

Vodafone is the 2nd operator in terms of coverage. 2G on 900 MHz, 3G on 2100 MHz, 4G/LTE was launched in 2016. It has a good coverage in the country, slightly worse than Turkcell, but better than Türk Telekom.

Vodafone has conducted extensive trials on Open RAN technology with the OpenRAN leader Parallel Wireless. These trials resulted in the creation of a Playbook with the help of Telecom Infra Project (TIP) OpenRAN group.

This playbook is developed by teams from Vodafone and Parallel Wireless to capture the learnings from this trial deployment where brownfield sites in Turkey were swapped with OpenRAN solutions for 2G/3G/4G, evaluating the technical and operational KPIs in the process. The playbook helps the OpenRAN community members, RAN solution providers, network operators, and system integrators take an informed approach to the selection of technology and the planning of OpenRAN deployments. It's available here.

In 2016 Türk Telekom rebranded its mobile network from Avea, but you see their old sign still sometimes. It's the smallest provider in Turkey in terms of coverage, but they have still good speeds in the cities and a fair coverage in the countryside. 2G is on 900 and 1800 MHz, 3G on 2100 MHz, 4G/LTE was launched in 2016. It still has the lowest coverage in the countryside, but is strong in cities.

A recent GSMA report, Roadmaps for awarding 5G spectrum in the MENA region, October 2020, mentioned that BTK, the Turkish regulator, has outlined its 2019-2023 strategic objectives under nine main themes in a 105-page long document. These objectives include detailed discussions on support for research and development activities to establish ‘5G and beyond’ national technologies; expanding fibre optic infrastructure to support fixed, mobile and cable broadband technologies; support for emerging technologies, e.g. IoT/M2M; and development of national cyber security capabilities.

The New Generation Mobile Communications Technologies Turkey Forum (5GTR Forum) was established in 2016 to coordinate activities of industry and academia relating to the development of 5G technology in Turkey. The forum produced a 338-page long ‘white book’ titled ‘5G and Beyond’. The report provides a set of recommendations for the development of physical layer, core network and terminals as well as how individual verticals could benefit from the use of 5G technology.

In terms of spectrum allocations, the report notes that the bands 470-694 MHz, 694-790 MHz, 1427-1518 MHz, 2300-2400 MHz, 2500-2690 MHz140, 3400-3800 MHz, 24.25-27.5 GHz, 40-43.5 GHz and 66-71 GHz are planned for mobile broadband systems in the short (before 2023), medium (2023-2028) and long (beyond 2028) term.

5G trials are being conducted, including:

• Turk Telekom live trials for 3.5 GHz band; and
• Turkcell field trials for 26/28 GHz and 3.5 GHz.
• Vodafone has planned its 5G trials but is yet to operationalise them.

Related Blog Posts:

• Operator Watch Blog: Vodafone Accelerates Open RAN Innovation, Evangelizes Benefits to Other Operators
• Operator Watch Blog: Turkcell Group in 5 slides
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Turkcell Marks a 'First in the World in 5G' with Domestic Drone Technology
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog - 5G CrowdCell: World's First 5G OpenRAN Small Cell
• Operator Watch Blog - Turkey: 4G Trials and Tribulations 

Turkey: 4G Trials and Tribulations

Turkey has had its fair share of drama regarding mobile networks and technology. For example fourth-generation (4G) mobile data network didn't arrive in Turkey until April 2016 thats nearly eight years after arriving in Scandinavia and South Korea.Turkish mobile phone users had to wait for bureaucratic issues and uncertain market conditions to clear up before they could use faster data connections. Moreover in 2015 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that his country does not need to upgrade to the 4G system. Instead, Erdogan said, Turkey should leap forward to the more advanced 5G network in two years. This was a rather bizarre statement considering 5G technology does not exist and will not for a few more years. 

One expert, a senior engineer and product manager at Turkey’s leading mobile phone company, Turkcell, talked to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. He said that the most optimistic estimate for 5G’s first use around the world would be 2020. “The hope is to use 5G at the Tokyo Olympics,” the expert said, adding that Erdogan’s estimate of two years “does not appear to be technically possible.” The lack of a 4G network would slow down every facet of the Turkish economy — business, industry, transportation, communication and government — and undermine Erdogan’s ambition to turn his country into one of the top 10 global economies by the next decade.

So why this delay in bulding 4G? According to Fusun Sarp Nebil, one of Turkey’s leading telecommunications experts, Turkey's adoption of 4G is not the first time that Turkey has been late to adopt an innovation in telecommunications.

“Turkey always follows technology belatedly. It took [four years] before ADSL Internet came to Turkey,” while “3G [mobile networks] arrived nine years after it did in the rest of the world.”

Central and local governments’ delays and inadequacy explain why the development of wireless and landline Internet is moving at a snail’s pace in Turkey. For Nebil, a major problem is the extremely high tax burden on consumers. The Finance Ministry recently admitted that an exorbitant 60% of what Turkish consumers pay on their mobile phone bills goes to taxes. That is, for every 40 Turkish liras ($15) of minutes and data that customers pay their mobile service providers, they pay 60 Turkish liras ($23) to the Turkish government. (By comparison, US customers pay about 17% in federal, state and local taxes.)

However Turkey has now launched its self-declared '4.5G' network. Turkish mobile operators have engaged in even more impressive marketing stunts to sell new phones and data plans. The market leader Turkcell appeals to popular and patriotic sentiments with its “bagliyiz biz” (we are tied / connected / loyal to each other) campaign. Vodafone, with its “4 bucak g” (4 corners g) campaign, showcases folk dancers from the four corners of Turkey performing their own regional dances as well as those of other areas. Former telecom monopoly Turk Telekom (previously Avea) takes a different route and uses Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo to emphasize its 4G network’s speed.

Currently Turkcell is the leading mobile phone operator of Turkey,based in Istanbul. In February 1994, Turkcell started Turkey’s first GSM network. In Q3 2012, it had a market share of 52,4%. Its competitors were Vodafone with a market share of 27,9% and Avea with a market share of 19,7%. The introduction of this '4.5G' infrastructure and an increased smartphone ownership, mobile-based internet and data services in Turkey have grown, this, in turn, has boosted revenues for the country's mobile operators. 

As of June 2017, Turkey had some 76.6 million mobile subscribers, including machine-to-machine communication (M2M) subscribers, which corresponded to 96 percent a penetration rate.

Since April 2016, there was a quick transition from 3G to 4.5G subscriptions and at the end of June 2017, the number of 3G subscribers dropped to 13.2 million, while the number of 4.5G subscribers reached 59.8 million. So much so, internet and data accounted for 71.1 percent of Turkcell's, 61.2 percent of Vodafone's and 51.4 Türk Telekom's total revenues in the second quarter of this year.Online music and video streaming services, internet TV, and social media applications have mainly driven the growth in mobile data usage.

However Subscription plans also do not come cheap. Modest plans with 2 gigabytes (GB) of data, 1,000 text messages and 1,000 minutes of phone calls vary between 35-50 Turkish lira ($12 to $17). But some plans with 15 GB of data can reach as high as 159 Turkish lira ($55), including taxes and other fees. For a country where the net minimum wage is 1,300 Turkish lira ($457), even the cheapest data plan seems like a luxury. To boost consumer demand and usage, Turkey must create a mature 4G network and, more importantly, a robust Internet infrastructure.

As a result Kozan Demircan, one of the country’s leading technology experts, calls the new '4.5G' an “April Fool’s joke” because Turkey simply does not have the fiber optic network to support the promised connection speeds. High levels of fiber optic penetration (an area in which Turkey comes up short) enable high-quality connections between personal computers, mobile devices and cell towers. 

As another expert told Al-Monitor a few months ago, Portugal — with a total area of 100,000 square kilometers (38,600 square miles) — boasts a fiber optic network of 545,000 kilometers (338,000 miles). But Turkey, with nearly eight times the area of Portugal, only has 250,000 kilometers of fiber optic cable (a figure that was already 150,000 kilometers in 2005), when it should have over 4.5 million kilometers of fiber optic cable to catch up with Portugal.

These shortcomings slow connection speeds. Demircan points out that “whereas the targeted speed with 4.5G is around 330 to 400 megabits per second [Mbps], average connection speeds are 30-40 Mbps.” Although those figures are a respectable improvement over actual speeds of 14 Mbps on the 3G network, even those limited speeds are not available to Turks who live in major cities such as Istanbul and Ankara. (According to Akamai Technologies, a global content delivery company, Turkey’s average Internet connection speed was 6.2 Mbps in the third quarter of 2015.) As Demircan warns, there is a positive relationship between high broadband Internet penetration and its contribution to high levels of national income.

So why does Turkey not dedicate itself to a truly viable and progressive 4G that would help to grow its economy?

One major problem is the Turkish state’s inability to open up the market to competition. In particular, Turk Telekom, which owns most of the fiber optic network thanks to its former status as Turkey’s telecom monopoly, does not want to share its property with service providers. Also Turkish municipalities continue to charge exorbitant fees whenever service providers attempt to lay new fiber optic cables.

A bigger challenge is the allegation that the Turkish state and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) view high-speed Internet with suspicion. One Turkish Internet expert and former government employee told Al-Monitor alleges that Gezi protests of 2013 and the Gulen-AKP fallout in early 2014, the state — especially the national security apparatus — has become wary of very high Internet connections. “You cannot upload high-quality videos or extended audio files on the 3G,” said the expert. So there is not much enthusiasm to improve conditions through the 4G network.

Due to the delays and problems in 4G there is unfortunately a real possibility that Turkey will also be late in adopting 5G and that means falling further behind in economic development. Hopefully this can still be remedied.