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Turkcell Reaches 1200 Mbps with 5 Carrier Aggregation in 4.5G Demo

[December 22, 2015]

Turkcell Reaches 1200 Mbps with 5 Carrier Aggregation in 4.5G Demo

Aggregating 5 carriers in a demo carried out on Friday in its Istanbul headquarters, Turkcell (News - Alert) (NYSE:TKC)(BIST:TCELL) reached mobile broadband speeds of 1200 Mbps on 4.5G.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151221006302/en/

Turkcell CTO Ilker Kuruoz explains the results of the live demo during which Turkcell reached 1200 Mbps mobile broadband speed on 4.5G. (Photo: Business Wire)

During the demo, Turkcell used 79.8 MHz of frequency consisting of 29.8 MHz (20 + 9.8) in 1800 MHz band, 30 MHz (20+10) in 2100 MHz band, and 20 MHz in 2600 MHz band - a configuration that includes the use of the spectrum Turkcell had acquired in 1800, 2100 and 2600 MHz bands in Turkey's spectrum auction held on August 26th.

The demo was attended by members of the Turkish media and was carried out using the equipment developed by Huawei (News - Alert).

"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 currnt fiber experience on mobile." said Ilker Kuruoz, Turkcell's CTO. "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."

Turkcell will launch 4.5G in Turkey on April 1st with speeds of up to 375 Mbps aggregating 3 carriers. It had announced plans to support speeds of more that 1000 Mbps towards the end of 2016 on its network using the technology employed in the aforementioned demo.

It is expected that smartphones that can support 5 Carrier Aggregation will be available around mid-2017 - which means that Turkcell customers, who currently enjoy Turkey's fastest 3G with 63.3 Mbps on supporting devices, will be able to use their mobile broadband up to 19 times faster in less than 2 years.

For the breakdown of the spectrum that Turkcell acquired in the auction held on August 26th, please visit: http://s.turkcell.com.tr/hakkimizda/en/yatirimciiliskileri/InvestorAnnouncementLibrary/fass-Tender-Result.pdf

ABOUT TURKCELL: Turkcell is an integrated communication and technology services player in Turkey. Turkcell Group has approximately 68.1 million mobile subscribers in nine countries and over 1.4 million fixed subscribers in Turkey as of September 30, 2015. Turkcell was one of the first among the global operators to have implemented HSPA+. It has announced two new HSPA+ Technologies on its 3G network to meet rising data usage. Having successfully integrated 3C-HSDPA and DC-HSUPA Technologies, it became the first mobile operator in the world to enable peak speed of 63.3 Mbps downlink while also enabled an 11.5 Mbps uplink on a 3G network. Turkcell is the first telecom operator to offer households fiber broadband connection at speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps in Turkey. As of September 2015, Turkcell's population coverage is at 99.81% in 2G and 94.14% in 3G. Turkcell Group reported a TRY3.4 billion (US$1.2 billion) revenue with total assets of TRY20.6 billion (US$6.8 billion) as of September 30, 2015. It has been listed on the NYSE and the BIST since July 2000, and is the only NYSE-listed company in Turkey.