Turkey postpones 4G auction
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Turkey postpones 4G auction

Turkey's Ministry of Transportation, Maritime Affairs and Communications has announced that the country's 4G auction will be postponed by three months to August 26 2015.

The Ministry said it agreed with potential bidders in the auction that more time was needed to finalise the technical and financial conditions of the licences. 

The government previously scheduled the spectrum auction for May 26 2015, with plans to sell 390MHz of spectrum in the 800MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, 2.1GHz and 2.6GHz bands for a total of €2.3 billion. 

The move comes after president Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey should jump directly from 3G to 5G within two years. 

“It is not necessary to waste time with 4G technologies,” Erdogan told reporters. “If we wait two more years, then 5G is going to come along. Otherwise when Turkey gets 4G it will just get put on the rubbish heap."

According to Turkey's Information and Communication Technologies Authority, there were 71.9 million mobile subscribers in Turkey at the end of 2014. Turkcell’s market share, in terms of subscribers, was 48.2%, followed by Vodafone with 29.1% and Avea with 22.7%. 



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