Ümit Önal (pictured), the new CEO, who was previously executive vice president responsible for sales, marketing and customer services, said the company has 47 million customers and is expanding its fibre infrastructure to support 5G.
Türk Telekom is now the readiest operator for 5G in terms of infrastructure prevalence as well as the products and technologies, Önal told Turkish media in his first press conference.
He said the company sources equipment from Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia in order to achieve diversity.
The company announced Önal’s appointment at the end of August. He was born in 1973 and is a graduate of Istanbul University’s faculty of communication. He joined the Türk Telekom group at the end of 2016 and was assistant general manager in charge of sales and customer services until 2018.
He told the press conference that 80% of the fibre infrastructure in the country belongs to Türk Telekom.
A total of 18.6 million households already had fibre connections by the end of 2018, a number increasing by 2.4 million a year. “The last year and a half, we’ve covered 3.2 million new households with fibre,” he said.
Önal said there is active sharing of mobile base stations with other operators.
