Turkcell has rolled out LTE-Advanced to nine rural villages after deploying the nationally produced ULAK base station.
Settlements in the Cankiri region, north-east of the Turkish capital Ankara, are the first to have their 2G network upgraded to 4.5G.
The rollout is part of the country’s Universal Connectivity project, which requires Turkcell to roll out 4.5G to 1,799 rural settlements.
While the agreement stipulated 10 percent of these rollouts must use locally produced base stations, Turkcell is planning to use them for almost half. Another 700 locations will have the publicly produced base station installed by the end of this year.
Gediz Sezgin, Chief Technology Officer of Turkcell, said: “If we want Industry 4.0 to transform the societies, we cannot leave anyone behind, no matter what today’s economic feasibilities suggest. As the digital operator, we are honored to support the Turkish Government in taking 4.5G to rural parts of Turkey.
“We are also proud to see that Turkey today has the capability to support this effort with locally produced technology. We are happy to help foster the growth of Turkey’s local technological capabilities and ecosystem through our deployment of the national base station. Both dimensions of our recent deployment in Cankiri exemplify a public-private partnership done right.”
The base stations were developed by the Turkish defence supplier Aselsan, telecoms equipment suppliers Netas and Argela. Turkcell worked closely on its manufacture, contributing its requirements for infrastructure and also aiding the production process.
Last month, Turkcell held a summit for its business partners and the country’s government to discuss its upcoming rollout of 5G.
It also discussed a recent network test that achieved speeds of 1.05GBps.