Turkey’s President Erdogan Calls For Operators To Adopt Local 5G Technology

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the country needs a local 5G technology infrastructure in order to support the switch to 5G. He was speaking during an event held by the country’s information technologies and communications agency.

He said there are approximately 190,000 base stations in the country. The number of base stations from the ULAK local project is around 1,000. The ULAK project is carried out by the Netas Telekomunikasyon, Aselsan and Argela consortium. It aims to reduce external dependence in mobile communication technologies by development of national software and hardware components for 4.5G communication.

Erdogan said that although there is an order for 3,400 ULAK stations from various operators, more needs to be done to support the development of local equipment. He invited all local mobile operators to use ULAK, the domestic and national base station of the country, more effectively.

Erdogan added the country will launch the Turksat 5A satellite towards the end of 2020. It will also send Turksat 5B into space in 2021. The design of Turksat 6A, which will be its first domestic communication satellite, was completed. The country plans to send Turksat 6A to space in 2022.

At present, the country has 3 communication satellites, Turksat 3A, 4A and 4B. These satellites allow broadcasting services to 3 billion people in 118 countries.―Telecompaper