With 10 Days to Go for Turkey's 4.5G Launch, Turkcell Announces Country-Wide Readiness

10 days ahead of the official launching of 4.5G in Turkey, Turkcell (NYSE:TKC) (BIST:TCELL) announced that its network is ready to start offering 4.5G services in all of the 81 cities of the country. The announcement came during a press conference held simultaneously in 5 cities. Turkcell CEO Kaan Terzioglu, who hosted the conference in Istanbul, was joined by 4 C-level Turkcell executives located in 4 cities in different parts of the country via live broadcast.

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Turkcell CEO Kaan Terzioglu (center) announced Turkcell's readiness for country-wide 4.5G service in Istanbul. Terzioglu was joined by 4 Turkcell executives in 4 different cities of Turkey. (Photo: Business Wire)

Press conference held in 5 cities simultaneously

Speaking in Istanbul as the host of the press conference, Terzioglu emphasized the extraordinary effort of Turkcell’s network teams who have covered every city center in Turkey – a country which spreads over a 783,6 thousand km² (302,5 thousand sq. mile) territory.

“We have invested heavily in the spectrum auction held on August 26th in order to bring the fastest mobile internet to our customers all over Turkey. With the 1,220,000 hours of work that our network teams have clocked in through hard conditions, today we are able to announce that Turkcell network is ready for 4.5G in 81 cities 10 days ahead of schedule” said Kaan Terzioglu, CEO of Turkcell. “We are proud to have demonstrated our technological leadership by rolling out 4.5G over such a wide geographical area – a unique picture not only on a national but also global scale.”

During the press conference, Terzioglu was joined by Turkcell CTO Ilker Kuruoz in Izmir in the western part of the country, CFO Murat Dogan Erden in Erzurum in the east, Chief Strategy Officer Ilter Terzioglu in Samsun in the north, and Chief Sales Officer Murat Erkan in Adana in the south. Terzioglu and 4 Turkcell executives tested the network’s 4.5G speed, and shared the results with the audience in 5 cities through live broadcast.

Coverage meets speed on Turkcell’s network

The speeds achieved in each city through Turkcell’s unique spectrum advantage are as follows:

Turkcell network teams clocked in 1 million 220 thousand hours of work, and traveled 790 thousand km to complete the first phase of the roll-out which took 4.5G to 81 city centers. The coldest weather registered during the roll-out was -30°C (-22°F) in Agri Patnos in the east of the country. The highest location where network equipment was installed was Hakkari in the southeast which is 3200m (10,665 ft) above the sea level.

ABOUT TURKCELL: Turkcell is a converged communication and technology services player in Turkey. Turkcell Group has approximately 68.8 million mobile, fixed and IPTV subscribers as of December 31, 2015. Turkcell was one of the first among the global operators to have implemented HSPA+. It has announced two new HSPA+ Technologies on its 3G network to meet rising data usage. Having successfully integrated 3C-HSDPA and DC-HSUPA Technologies, it became the first mobile operator in the world to enable peak speed of 63.3 Mbps downlink while also enabled an 11.5 Mbps uplink on a 3G network. Turkcell is the first telecom operator to offer households fiber broadband connection at speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps in Turkey. As of December 2015, Turkcell’s population coverage is at 99.85% in 2G and 95.03% in 3G. Turkcell Group reported a TRY12.8 billion (US$4.7 billion) revenue with total assets of TRY26.2 billion (US$9.0 billion) as of December 31, 2015. It has been listed on the NYSE and the BIST since July 2000, and is the only NYSE-listed company in Turkey. Read more at www.turkcell.com.tr

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