Turkey will hold a 5G spectrum tender on October 16, and operators plan to start service on April 1, 2026, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said on Sunday.
Türkiye 5G’ye Geçiyor 📱
🗓️ İhalesini 16 Ekim’de gerçekleştireceğimiz 5G hizmetini işletmecilerimiz 1 Nisan 2026 itibarıyla vatandaşlarımıza sunmaya başlayacak.
🔹 Toplam 400 MHz frekans, 2,1 milyar dolar asgari değer üzerinden yapılacak ihaleyle, 11 farklı frekans paketi… pic.twitter.com/kCSfCbg8J2
— Abdulkadir URALOĞLU (@a_uraloglu) August 31, 2025
Only operators that already hold GSM or IMT authorizations in Turkey can bid, which in practice covers Turkcell, Türk Telekom and Vodafone Turkey.
The auction will offer 400 megahertz of spectrum in the 700 megahertz and 3.5 gigahertz bands, divided into 11 packages with a combined minimum valuation of $2.125 billion.
The 700 megahertz band supports wide-area coverage and indoor reach, while 3.4 to 3.8 gigahertz is the European Union’s main mid band for 5G capacity.
The ministry set the tender specification fee at 1 million lira and said spectrum fees can be paid in three equal installments.
Bids open on October 9, the final submission is October 16 at 09:30, and the auction starts at 10:30 at the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) headquarters in Ankara.
Existing mobile network licenses end on April 30, 2029. From that date operators will pay 5 percent of annual revenue to the BTK, and the new authorization will run until December 31, 2042.
Turkey last introduced nationwide mobile data upgrades in April 2016, when the three operators launched 4.5G LTE service after a 2015 spectrum auction.