Turkey is officially going ahead with 5G spectrum auction plans. Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu announced earlier this week that the 5G frequency tender would take place in October.
Tender specifications will be published in the coming weeks. The intention is for initial service to be available some time in 2026 (it’s not precisely clear when), starting in major cities and then expanding to the rest of the country.
The date announced is a bit later than Uraloglu had hoped; his aim had apparently been to hold the tender in August. The goal, in any case, is for 5G services to be available across the entire country within a few years after the initial signal is received in 2026.
All three operators – government-controlled Turkcell and Turk Telekom along with Vodafone's Turkey – are expected to take part in the tender. Reuters says that Turkey has consulted with all three operators and studied global 5G models, particularly in Europe.
The auction will be conducted by the country’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK). The tender will include 11 frequency packages across the 700MHz and 3.5GHz bands, with individual package values ranging from US$50 million to US$425 million. The minimum price for the frequency packages is set at US$2.13 billion.
The tender will also see the government roll over existing mobile network licenses, currently set to expire in 2029. This presumably allows them to keep the frequencies they have now even after 2G and 3G shutdowns, though operators will be required to pay 5% of their yearly revenues to roll over the licenses. A performance guarantee is to be lodged at the same time.
As for 5G auction payments, winning operators will have to pay their licence fees in three equal instalments, with penalties applied for delayed or partial payments. There will also be the potential for revocation of a licence for a payment delay of over 30 days.
