The 2018 Ceremony of the “Bilişim 500 Awards,” which takes the pulse of Turkey's information and communication technologies sector every year, was completed with a magnificent organization.
The “Bilişim 500 Awards,” which takes the pulse of Turkey's information technologies and communication sector, found their owners at the event held in Istanbul. Dr. Ömer Fatih Sayan, President of the Information Technologies and Communication Authority, who attended the award ceremony as a speaker, began his speech with the words: “Today, we will see our achievements in the informatics field in Turkey, we will be proud, we will be hopeful. By seeing Turkey's shining informatics companies and their accomplishments, we will look to the future with confidence.”
Emphasizing that the categories in which the Bilişim-500 awards are given are of great importance, President Sayan said, “For ambitious countries like growing and developing Turkey, each one has vital importance. As the Information Technologies and Communication Authority, we will continue to stand behind our companies and entrepreneurs who strive to create added value in these categories.”
Highlighting that especially the R&D category determined under the plus title and the IoT and M2M category are more important among the categories, Sayan stated, “I believe that special emphasis should be placed on these two. Because without R&D, there is no innovation; without innovation, there is no leadership. Without being a leader in informatics, you cannot lead the world. If we want to be a country that leads the world, we need science, technology, R&D, and new ideas. As BTK, our priorities are investments in technology, digital transformation, and human resources. Our goal is to be one of the first countries in the world to transition to 5G with domestic and national service products and technologies as much as possible. In a changing and transforming world, we cannot stop or pause. We must continue our investments in the informatics and technology sector at full speed. There is one point I want to emphasize for those operating in the informatics field, potential players and investors entering this sector, and even our young people choosing professions: Global growth statistics in informatics are approximately 10 times the growth of national economies. Global economic growth has averaged between 3.5% and 4% in recent years. This rate is between 4% and 5% in emerging markets and between 2% and 2.5% in developed countries.”
“Not Words Upon Words, But Stones Upon Stones”
President Sayan, who strongly emphasized the importance of investments in technology, digital transformation, and human resources as BTK, said, “In this context, we are conducting some focus studies; we are working with all our might to ensure Turkey's digital transformation in the fastest and most accurate way. With the understanding of ‘Not Words Upon Words, But Stones Upon Stones,’ we continue on our way relentlessly. Because we know that ‘Those who work with love; those who run with love do not get tired.’ Our goal, vision, and passion is the Great and Powerful Turkey, which will enter the top 10 economies of the world in 2023 within the framework of the vision set by our President, and for this, we say Domestic and National Production.”
President Sayan listed the components of the digital transformation vision as follows: “We can summarize them as establishing an effective competitive environment, making technological products and infrastructure accessible at reasonable prices, providing broadband internet to all citizens, supporting domestic and national production, developing cyber security capacity, creating added value through big data analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, and widespread use of e-government services. We are rapidly continuing the projects and studies we have conducted from past to present, targeting both supply and demand-side needs in the sector regarding these components.”
Stating that investments by operators in the electronic communications sector continue without slowing down, Sayan said, “In the first quarter of 2018 alone, the total investment of our operators amounted to 1.3 billion ₺. This represents an approximately 16% increase compared to the same period of the previous year. On the other hand, if we make a comparison based on annual total investments; we see that the total investment amount was approximately 8.2 billion ₺ in 2017. This figure also indicates an increase of nearly 10% compared to the previous year. I think we will achieve an even greater increase rate in 2018 overall. Our mobile subscriber count reached 78.9 million in the first quarter of 2018, while our mobile penetration rate became 97.7%. While we had only 6 million fixed broadband subscribers in 2008, we reached a total of 70 million broadband subscribers, 57.7 million of which are mobile, by the end of the first quarter of 2018. This corresponds to an annual average increase of nearly 30%. In fixed broadband services, the number of xDSL subscribers reached 8.9 million, and our cable internet subscriber count approached 850 thousand. The annual growth rate in ‘fiber to the home’ subscribers reached 40.7%. According to Point Topic data, we are the 7th country in the world that gained the most new fixed broadband subscribers by the end of 2017. Our fiber internet subscriber count, which was 650 thousand in 2012, approached 2.5 million by the end of the first quarter of 2018. Our fiber infrastructure, which is the main component of both fixed and mobile broadband, exceeded 330 thousand kilometers in the same period, showing more than 11% annual growth. We believe that fiber infrastructure investments will grow much faster from now on within the framework of the common understanding formed by our operators coming together in recent days. Our total broadband internet traffic increased by 40% compared to the same period of the previous year in the first quarter of 2018, approaching 14 million Terabytes in the last year.”
President Sayan also touched on the AKN issue with these words: “Last year, taking into account the demands from consumers, we made improvements in post-AKN access speeds with our regulation regarding the Fair Usage Point (AKN), which was considered a restrictive factor in internet usage. Moreover, we decided to completely remove the AKN application by the end of 2018. The lifting of the speed limit on the informatics highway means making full use of these roads. With our AKN regulation and the start of 4.5G, our average mobile data usage doubled and reached 3.7 GB. The average data usage of 4.5G subscribers reached 6.2 GB monthly. On the fixed side, both speeds and usage are increasing. Additionally, briefly, the upward trend in the number of electronic and mobile signatures continues, reaching a total of 3.4 million.”
Expressing that Turkey is in a good position among OECD countries not only in terms of broadband internet penetration and usage but also in internet access prices, Sayan said, “In this context, the fixed internet access price according to purchasing power parity for medium packages is on average 30 USD in OECD countries, while it is at 21 USD in our country. Similarly, mobile broadband access is 30 USD in OECD countries, while it is around 13 USD in our country and offered to our citizens at quite affordable prices.”
We Are Taking Important Steps on the Road to Digital Economy Transformation
Stating that our country has taken very important steps on the road to digital economy transformation to date, President Sayan said, “In the coming years, to reach the 2023 target set for the informatics sector, we need to achieve an annual growth rate approximately twice the growth recorded in 2017. In addition, reflecting the use of information and communication technologies into production has an important share for our country's welfare. Information technologies, which form the backbone of industry and manufacturing, are one of the factors that keep national economies afloat by contributing to production. In this sense, we foresee that efforts towards domestic and national production will make significant contributions to our growth rates in the coming years.”
Emphasizing that there is a great race in the world regarding 5th Generation Mobile Communication Technologies, Sayan said, “Even while conducting the 4.5G tender, we set our target to be one of the countries transitioning to 5G the earliest and put Turkey in this race. Our goal is to be one of the first countries in the world to transition to 5G. In addition, we set another target for ourselves: We are working to transition to 5G with the highest possible domestic rates. Under the umbrella of the 5GTR Forum, we brought together our operators, universities, and technology companies to prepare Turkey for 5G and Beyond. From core network to physical network, from services and applications to standardization, all 5G-related topics are discussed in detail under the 5GTR Forum. Additionally, we will soon share the ‘White Paper’ prepared by these groups with the public to determine Turkey's 5G roadmap, strategies, and priorities. On the other hand, ULAK Communication Company, which produces domestic 4.5G base stations, together with our companies forming the Communication Technologies Cluster that sets out for end-to-end 5G networks, we look to the future with hope. In line with the goal of being one of the countries transitioning to Turkey's 5G mobile communication technology with the highest possible domestic and national rates at the earliest, we established the 5G Valley Open Test Field under the coordination of our Institution to create a 5G and Beyond ecosystem.”
President Sayan spoke about the 5G Valley Open Test Field as follows: “The 5G Valley Open Test Field will create new R&D opportunities for all stakeholders of the electronic communications sector and enable effective research and projects in the context of public-university-operator-industry collaborations. Additionally, it will contribute to employment by creating high value-added job opportunities in the ecosystem. I thank everyone working in this field and invite all of Turkey's informatics companies to benefit from the opportunities of 5G Valley. In addition, to contribute to the training of qualified human resources in our country on 5G and Beyond topics, we established the 5G and Beyond Joint Graduate Support Program with the 5G Valley parties. A fully public-private-university collaboration model. I believe this model will be a success story for Turkey. In the first phase over a two-year period, we will train a total of 60 people in next-generation communication technologies within this scope. The program will start to be implemented in the upcoming academic year.”
Cyber security, which is indispensable for countries, was also on President Sayan’s agenda. Providing information about USOM working in this field, Sayan stated in his speech, “Activities such as incident response, digital log examination, and penetration testing in many of our critical institutions continue to be conducted by USOM personnel. One of the most important elements in ensuring national cyber security is the development and use of domestic and national solutions. As BTK, we develop projects worth millions of dollars with our own internal resources. With these projects, significant added value has been created both materially and strategically for our country. In this framework, we use our domestic and national applications called KASIRGA, AVCI, and AZAD, which are based on machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities. The applications we have developed can be used to prevent victimizations targeting end users as well as to effectively detect targeted espionage attacks against critical institutions.”
We Must Be Conscious for Digitalization to Be Secure
Emphasizing that digitalization must be fast on one side and secure on the other, thus requiring us to be fast and conscious, Sayan said that data is as valuable as oil and added: “We are talking about a period where data analysis has become one of the most important skills in the sector. In Gartner’s 2018 IoT report, it is stated that approximately 20 billion devices will be connected to the internet by 2020, including smartphones as well as connected vehicles, vending machines, and countless other application examples. In such an environment, Turkey—that is, one of the world’s most important countries both geopolitically and socio-culturally—cannot leave its data uncontrolled. The data produced by cars, meters, phones, and sensors used in Turkey must stay in Turkey. Companies properly established in Turkey must operate in Turkey's informatics market. Moreover, these companies must enter global markets with their creative and innovative ideas in a proper manner. I would like to remind once again that as BTK, we have taken and will continue to take steps to pave the way for our companies at this point.”
Reminding that among BTK’s duties is collecting high-volume big data from various sources, primarily operators, processing it within the scope of requests from relevant legal authorities, and sharing the requested information with these authorities, Sayan said, “With continuously increasing data sources and data volume, the need for larger data centers and data processing capacities is also increasing. In this context, we produce the desired outputs in the most effective and fastest way with big data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence applications. It should also be emphasized that the applications we use in all these processes are developed with our own internal resources. In this sense, I want to emphasize that in the upcoming period, in line with our country's vision; together with our operators and stakeholders in the sector, as well as the public side, we will continue to bring together the building blocks of digital transformation in terms of technology and human resource capacity.” With these words, he concluded his speech.