Turkey could issue up to four nationwide 3.5GHz licences next year,according to Turkcell, Europe's second largest mobile operator bysubscriber numbers, which wants to use WiMAX in the spectrum.

Two years ago Intel and Turk Telecom began the first WiMAX pilot inTurkey, connecting a school in Yozgat to the internet. In June 2006,Turkish WISP Turbonet started trials with Aperto WiMAX equipment inIstanbul using a trial 3.5GHz licence.

Since then, however, there has been little activity in Turkeywith the fate of both 3G and wireless broadband spectrum uncertain.

Boasting some 34.8 million GSM subscribers as of September2007, Turkcell has enjoyed stratospheric growth in recent years aspent-up demand in the Turkish market exploded.

But the operator has been frustrated in its desire to move towardsproviding wireless broadband services, according to Ahmet Akan, anexecutive in Turkcell's Research and Development division.

"We have been ready for four years for 3G but for regulatory reasonswe can't get the licences," he said at the WiMAX 2007 event in Munich."One year ago, the regulator said there would be four 3.5GHz broadbandlicences but nothing happened."

However, in the wake of the ITU's decision to include WiMAX as anIMT technology and allocate more spectrum to IMT, Akan suggested thatthings may change.

He said that he expected the Turkish regulator to release fournationwide 3G licences and four nationwide 3.5GHz licences, each of30MHz, in 2008.

"Hopefully in Q1 2008 the regulator will have made a decision and somaybe in the second half of next year we will have the licencesawarded," Akan told WiMAX Vision. "First a UMTS auction and somethinglike three months after that we expect broadband licences to be given.If they offer them we also want to take WIMAX licences."

Turkcell has been trialling WiMAX with Motorola, Alcatel-Lucent andother vendors and is interested in providing a mobile service over802.16e equipment.

"We are thinking of starting with 802.16e, mobility is important,the fixed case is someone else's business. We believe in the technologyand although we are a GSM operator we believe WIMAX has a businesscase."

In the event that the regulator decides that incumbent mobileoperators cannot bid for wireless broadband licences, Turkcell wouldlook to use its 100 per cent-owned ISP to bid for the licence. Akansaid that in Turkey, ISPs were eager to take WiMAX licences.

Broadband penetration is low in Turkey, with about four millionsubscribers on ADSL networks provided by the incumbent Turk Telecom."Since we saw WiMAX coming we decided WIMAX should be the one we aretrying, we started trials one year ago," said Akan.

Turkcell sees "enough room for both UMTS and WiMAX" in Turkeyaccording to Akan because of the size of the country and the difficultydeploying cellular networks in more remote regions, such as the easternpart of Turkey.

Furthermore, Akan is confident that by the time licences are awardedin Turkey and Turkcell is ready to roll out networks, WiMAX and 3Gnetworks will be largely interoperable.

source:wimax-vision.com