Turkcell has succesfully completed a 5 carriers LTE-Advanced trial in its Istanbul headquarters in partnership with Huawei, showcasing mobile broadband speeds of 1200 Mbps on 4.5G network. During the demo, Turkcell used 79.8 MHz of frequency consisting of 29.8 MHz (20 + 9.8) in the 1800 MHz band, 30 MHz (20+10) in the 2100 MHz band, and 20 MHz in the 2600 MHz band - a configuration that includes the use of the spectrum Turkcell had acquired in a recent spectrum auction.
Turkcell plans to launch its 4.5G network next year April with speeds of up to 375 Mbps aggregating 3 carriers. The operator also announced plans to support speeds of more than 1000 Mbps towards the end of 2016. It expects smartphones that can support 5 Carrier Aggregation to be available around mid-2017.
Ilker Kuruoz, Turkcell’s CTO
With the 4.5G auction, we had set the bar high in terms of offering the fastest mobile broadband internet. We had announced that we would not only offer the country’s fastest 4.5G upon roll-out on April 1st, but also go beyond that in order to match the current fiber experience on mobile. With this speed demo, we are not only pushing the limits of 4.5G but also taking a major step towards 5G experience in terms of reaching speeds that exceed 1 Gbps.
