Turkey's most important transportation and communications-focused event, the 12th Transportation and Communications Council, continues on its second day. Speaking at the Council, Deputy Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Dr. Ömer Fatih Sayan spoke about Turkey's progress in this field.
The 2021 theme of the Transportation and Communications Council, Logistics, Mobility and Digitalization, continues on its second day. Speaking at the Council, Deputy Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Dr. Ömer Fatih Sayan noted that there had recently been a global access issue with social media services, partially affecting users in our country.
Deputy Minister Sayan: We Need to Accelerate Domestic and National Applications
Touching on a few topics that have recently come to public attention regarding cybersecurity and information security, Sayan stated, “Recently, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram services experienced a global access issue. Users in our country were also partially affected by this globally sourced problem. The relevant platform authorities explained that configuration changes in the backbone routers coordinating network traffic between data centers caused this disruption in communication. As a result of these foreign-sourced outages, our citizens using these applications were also victimized. This situation actually revealed one thing. Accepting a single application platform as the only option and failing to produce alternatives can lead to serious consequences during crisis periods. Therefore, it is necessary to multiply options and especially accelerate domestic and national applications. In this regard, I invite our citizens to become users of alternative domestic applications.”
Deputy Minister Sayan: It Is Important for Social Media Networks to Take Necessary Measures Against Manipulative News
Emphasizing the importance of domestic and national technology, Sayan said, “Legal regulation efforts regarding increasingly used social media platforms and messaging applications continue both worldwide and in our country. As you know, changes were made to our internet law on July 29, 2020, introducing regulations for social media companies. Our goal was to establish a relationship with companies that, despite having a large number of users, had not established direct contact with our country until now. Representative appointments have been made, but we have not achieved the performance we desired. In particular, our efforts continue for social networks to take necessary measures regarding those who systematically spread disinformation to manipulate public opinion.”
Deputy Minister Sayan: Our Total Broadband Subscriber Number is Approaching 86 Million
Drawing attention to the rapid changes in communication technologies, Sayan evaluated, "In 2013, when the previous Council was held, 3G mobile service was rapidly spreading in our country, today we are very close to transitioning to 5G and we are also discussing 6G alongside it. While speeds at megabit levels were satisfactory at that time, we are now making plans to bring fiber to homes at Gigabit levels across the entire country."
Conveying important breakthroughs in digitalization, Sayan said, "In 2013, the mobile subscriber number in our country was around 70 million, currently our mobile subscriber number has approached 85 million, mostly 4.5G subscribers. In 2013, our total fiber infrastructure, which was 227 thousand kilometers long, has nearly doubled to exceed 445 thousand kilometers as of today. In 2013, the number of subscribers to mobile broadband service provided with 3G was 24 million, now the mobile broadband subscriber number has reached 68.3 million. Our total broadband subscriber number is approaching 86 million. We have a target of providing 100 megabit internet."
Stating that the pandemic once again reminded how important information and communication technologies are, Sayan said, "With our strong fixed and mobile infrastructures in our country, we continued many of our processes such as education, health, communication, shopping, banking in online environments in communication services. During this process, investments in the ICT sector continued to increase without slowing down, and when we look at the figures, we see that 2020 recorded the highest growth in the last 10 years in terms of the ICT sector."
Deputy Minister Sayan: Information Technologies Are the Key to the Development and Transformation of Other Sectors
Touching on the changes in information and communication technologies, Sayan said, "Today, it is almost impossible to talk about a sector that does not use electronic communication services and infrastructure. The World Bank estimates that a 10% increase in broadband penetration could lead to a 1.2% increase in real GDP per capita in developed economies. Therefore, we need to see information technologies as the key to the development and transformation of other sectors. While international organizations used to rank countries by development levels based on schooling rates, number of hospitals, per capita electricity consumption, and income in the past, today the proportion of the population with internet access and the prevalence of high-speed mobile technologies are among the criteria for measuring development.”
Regarding digitalization investments, Sayan said, "In 2020, investments in the electronic communications sector increased by approximately 30% compared to the previous year despite pandemic conditions, and in 2021, it did not slow down, recording a 22% increase compared to the first half of last year. In addition to private sector investments, as the Ministry, we are bringing the latest technology to rural areas where mobile services cannot reach through Universal Service projects using domestically and nationally produced ULAK base stations. Our primary priority while building our country's digital highways is to use domestic and national communication products like ULAK. We see that the localization rate, which was 0.98% in the first investment period of 4.5G, has exceeded 23% as of the 2018-2019 investment period. However, we need to bring this to even better levels."
Deputy Minister Sayan: We Are Protecting Our Cyber Homeland with Domestic and National Software
Touching on the works for the transition to 5G, Ömer Fatih Sayan said: "Within the vision drawn by our President to transition to 5G with domestically and nationally produced network products, we have activated the domestic production potential in our country through works such as the Communications Technologies Cluster established for 5G and the 5G Valley Open Test Field. The End-to-End Domestic and National 5G Project, developed by the Communications Technologies Cluster established in 2017 with the support of our Ministry and BTK, is a milestone for our country in the communications field. Within the scope of the project, critical network hardware and software specific to 5G technology, such as 5G Base Station, 5G Core Network, 5G operational and managerial software, are being developed. The project is not only a product development project but also a tool to produce world brands. Indeed, 10 companies among the project stakeholders came together and established GTENT (Global Telekom and Integrated Technologies Inc.), and this company is working to bring our products to local and global markets."
Informing that investments continue to increase the prevalence of fiber infrastructure, which is critical for 5G, Sayan said, "5G is expected to contribute 3.8 trillion dollars to the world economy by 2035 and create 22.8 million jobs. We have also started our studies regarding the 5G tender for 5G to be offered in our country. Studies have begun by BTK to form policy and strategy recommendations for 5G authorization, taking into account existing 2G, 3G, and 4.5G authorizations. The relevant studies continue by taking the opinions of operators, manufacturer companies, and other sector stakeholders. Upon BTK presenting its policy recommendations for the transition to 5G to our Ministry, the issue will be thoroughly addressed by our Ministry, the most suitable 5G policies and strategies for our country will be formed, and the 5G tender process will be conducted in a way that meets the expectations of all stakeholders."
Pointing out that studies are also being conducted for 6G technology, Sayan commented, "Compared to 5G, 6G wireless communication networks are expected to provide much higher spectrum, energy, and cost efficiency, higher data rates, 10 times lower latency, 100 times higher connection density, more automation possibilities, and sub-millisecond time latency. Especially in manufacturing, automotive, construction, and health sectors, this technology will enable the creation of digital twins of projects that are difficult or expensive to realize, allowing them to be tested in virtual environments and then moved to the production stage."
Reminding that a cyber attack is encountered every second, Sayan concluded his speech by saying, "We are protecting our cyber homeland with our domestic and national software. As a result of our cybersecurity efforts, according to the Global Cybersecurity Index data used by the International Telecommunication Union to measure countries' maturity in cybersecurity, our country has successfully risen from 11th to 6th place in Europe and from 20th to 11th place in the world in 2020.”