Turkcell

Overview

Turkcell is a converged telecommunication and technology services provider, founded and headquartered in Turkey. It serves its customers with voice, data, TV and value-added consumer and enterprise services on mobile and fixed networks. Mobile communication in Turkey began when Turkcell commenced operations in February 1994. Turkcell then signed a 25-year GSM license contract with the Ministry of Transportation on April 27, 1998. Since then, it has continuously increased the variety of its services based on mobile voice and data communication, as well as on its quality levels, and as a result, its number of subscribers. Turkcell's shares have been traded on the Borsa Istanbul (BIST) and New York Stock Exchanges (NYSE) since July 11, 2000, and it is the only Turkish company to be listed on the latter exchange. Turkcell is also quoted on the Borsa Istanbul Sustainability Index.

Turkcell also has investments abroad. KKTCell, a 100%-owned subsidiary of Turkcell, was established in 1999 and operates within the framework of a revenue-sharing agreement with the Telecommunications Authority of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. lifecell, a company in Ukraine in which Turkcell holds a 100% stake, began operating in February 2005. Turkcell also acquired an 80% stake in BeST from the State Committee on Property of the Republic of Belarus in 2008. Turkcell has been present in Germany with the Turkcell Europe brand since 2011, and continues operations in that country through a marketing partnership with a subsidiary of Deutsche Telecom.  

The company has provided 2G GSM services over 900 MHz, and began 3G UMTS over B1 (2100 MHz) in July 2009. 3G was upgraded to DC-HSPA+ in December 2010, and 3C-HSPA+ in December 2014.

4G LTE testing began as early as April 2012 but the service wasn't commercial launched until April 2016 after spectrum was finally auctioned in May 2015. Turkcell acquired spectrum in five bands, and subsequently deployed a five band LTE-A Pro network consisting of B1 (2100 MHz), B3 (1800 MHz), B7 (2600 MHz), B8 (900 MHz), and B20 (800 MHz). The network, advertised as 4.5G, provides between 225 and 890 Mbps depending on carrier aggregation, 4X4 MIMO, and 256QAM configurations across the country. VoLTE and ViLTE services are available across the entire network.

Turkcell has demonstrated 5C LTE-A Pro, achieving peak DL data rates in excess of 1.2 Gbps.

Turkcell IoT

Turkcell successfully deployed NB-IoT (LTE Cat-NB1) and LTE-M nationwide in August 2017 over the B20 (800 MHz) band.

Turkcell 5G

The company began trialling 5G technologies in early 2017, including Massive MIMO tests in June, and mmWave in partnership with Huawei achieving 70 Gbps. In partnership with Samsung, Turkcell conducted Turkey's first live 5G trial in November 2018 using 5G FWA equipment. Turkcell and technology partner Ericsson announced the country's first successful 5G data call in January 2019 over the n78 (3500 MHz) band.