14.6.2017
Minister of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications Ahmet Arslan evaluated the “Turkey Electronic Communications Sector 3-Month Market Data Report” prepared by the Information Technologies and Communication Authority (BTK) for the first quarter of 2017.
Recalling that the number of fixed telephone service subscribers in the communications sector was 11 million at the end of 2016, Arslan stated that the number of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) subscribers exceeded 4.1 million. Emphasizing that the mobile subscriber count rose to 75.7 million, Arslan said, “In short, 94.9% of our population are mobile subscribers. In the first three months of 2017, with an average monthly mobile usage duration of 413 minutes, Turkey ranks first among European countries, as in previous periods."
4.5G SUBSCRIBERS USE 5.5 GIGABYTES OF INTERNET MONTHLY
Minister Arslan noted that the prevalence of 4.5G services, which provide higher mobile data speeds and were introduced on April 1, 2016, is steadily increasing, stating, "Approximately 56.4 million citizens have switched to 4.5G service subscriptions by the end of the first year. However, due to some citizens' devices or SIM cards not being compatible with 4.5G services, the number of active users of this service was around 22 million as of the end of March. While the average monthly usage of mobile broadband internet subscribers is at 2.5 gigabytes, the data usage of 4.5G subscribers whose devices and SIM cards are compatible with 4.5G services exceeds 5.5 gigabytes monthly."
OUR WORK ON 5G CONTINUES
Minister Arslan explained that the fiber infrastructure and fiber subscriber count, which are among the most important requirements for high-speed internet, have also increased significantly, announcing that the fiber infrastructure length grew by approximately 9.2% over the past year to 297,620 kilometers by the end of March 2017, and the fiber subscriber count exceeded 2 million.