Turkcell, Turk Telekom and Vodafone Turkey launch 5G services

Details: John Tanner; Category: Wireless Networks; 02 April 2026; 955 views

Turkey officially joined the 5G era on Wednesday after the country’s three main mobile operators – Turkcell, Turk Telekom and Vodafone Turkey – launched 5G services in all 81 provincial centres.

The launch comes six months after all three telcos forked out US$2.95 billion for 5G spectrum in the 700 MHz and 3.5 GHz bands in October last year. With service now available in all provincial centres, Turkcell, Turk Telekom, and Vodafone are required to extend coverage to all of Turkey by April 2028.

Turkcell marked the occasion at a press event on Wednesday by making simultaneous live 5G calls to Turkcell teams in 81 provinces, and carrying out live speed tests with employees in Erzurum, Adana, Trabzon, Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara and Diyarbakır, as well as a 5G remote driving scenario using an electric car from domestic automaker Togg.

Turkcell GM Ali Taha Koç touted the telco’s spectrum assets as its biggest advantage in Turkey’s new 5G space.

“We build 5G technology on the broad spectrum we have in 3G and 4.5G,” he said in a speech. “I'm talking about a total capacity of 394.4 MHz. This is 25% more than our closest competitor. As of today, we are the operator with the widest coverage competence in high capacity.”

Koç also cited the telco’s transport backbone that supports up to 1.6 Tbps of capacity as an advantage. If nothing else, Turkcell also has relatively deep pockets, having secured a US$1 billion syndicated international Murabaha financing agreement with 14 banks last week to finance its 5G rollout.

Apart from consumer mobile services, Turkcell is also targeting the fixed wireless access (FWA) sector with a 5G version of its “Superbox” home broadband offering, as well as a portable 5G hotspot device, Superbox Go. Turkcell also plans to target the enterprise sector with network slicing solutions tailiored for different institutions such as factories, hospitals and ports.

At Turk Telekom's press event on Monday ahead of its 5G service launch, CEO Ebubekir Şahin said the telco’s national fibre infrastructure – which reaches over 500,000 km – will give it an edge on the competition.

"With our fibre network extending to all 81 provinces, our extensive 5G infrastructure, our expertise in 5G applications, LTE base stations of which 61% are fiber-connected, and the highest 5G capacity per subscriber, we are ready to deliver the most inclusive 5G experience for everyone, everywhere across Turkey," he said.