Turkcell Chief Technology Officer Ilker Kuruoz has divulged key details relating to the mobile operator’s planned 4G launch, which will take place on 1 April 2016. Speaking to Mobile Europe after a capital markets day in London, Mr Kuruoz claimed that Turkcell will offer a tri-band carrier aggregation (3C) service with speeds of up to 375Mbps from launch, with a quad-band platform earmarked for launch in 2017. The 3C network will utilise 800MHz, 1800MHz and 2600MHz frequencies, while the executive also noted that around 15% of Turkcell’s base transceiver stations have already been connected to its fibre backbone network – a figure which is expected to rise to 38% by 2018.
As previously reported by TeleGeography’s CommsUpdate, Turkcell secured 4G-suitable frequencies in the government multi-band spectrum auction held on 26 August this year. The cellco paid EUR372.9 million (USD424.0 million) for the ‘A3’ spectrum package.