Istanbul, December 22nd, 2015 - Aggregating 5 carriers in a demo carried out on Friday in its Istanbul headquarters, Turkcell (NYSE:TKC)(BIST:TCELL) reached mobile broadband speeds of 1200 Mbps on 4.5G.
During the demo, Turkcell used 79.8 MHz of frequency consisting of 29.8 MHz (20 + 9.8) in 1800 MHz band, 30 MHz (20+10) in 2100 MHz band, and 20 MHz in 2600 MHz band - a configuration that includes the use of the spectrum Turkcell had acquired in 1800, 2100 and 2600 MHz bands in Turkey’s spectrum auction held on August 26th.
The demo was attended by members of the Turkish media and was carried out using the equipment developed by Huawei.
“With the 4.5G auction, we had set the bar high in terms of offering the fastest mobile broadband internet. We had announced that we would not only offer the country’s fastest 4.5G upon roll-out on April 1st, but also go beyond that in order to match the current fiber experience on mobile.” said Ilker Kuruoz, Turkcell’s CTO. “With this speed demo, we are not only pushing the limits of 4.5G but also taking a major step towards 5G experience in terms of reaching speeds that exceed 1 Gbps.”
Turkcell will launch 4.5G in Turkey on April 1st with speeds of up to 375 Mbps aggregating 3 carriers. It had announced plans to support speeds of more that 1000 Mbps towards the end of 2016 on its network using the technology employed in the aforementioned demo
It is expected that smartphones that can support 5 Carrier Aggregation will be available around mid- 2017 – which means that Turkcell customers, who currently enjoy Turkey’s fastest 3G with 63.3 Mbps on supporting devices, will be able to use their mobile broadband up to 19 times faster in less than 2 years.