Local firm aims to make Istanbul internet capital

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Company photo

Turkcell Superonline, one of Turkey’s Internet service providers, aims to lead in making Istanbul “the capital of the Internet,” and is busy developing a fiber network across the country.

Turkey should become a regional informatics center in order to answer the products and service demands of not only local markets, but also foreign markets, Superonline General Manager Murat Erkan said in a recent interview with the Hürriyet Daily News. For this reason, one of the company’s main targets is to make Istanbul the capital of the Internet, he added.

Turkey, as a rising economy, needs to have a strong fiber infrastructure, according to company’s vision.

To this end, Superonline has constructed a 32,000 square kilometer fiber optic infrastructure, covering 75 cities, with a 1.8 billion Turkish Liras investment since the beginning of the investments that began five years ago, Erkan said. “We’ve transmitted fiber internet to 1.4 million houses in 12 cities,” he said, adding that 63 percent of 741,000 fiber internet users were the clients of Superonline, according to second quarter data of the Information and Communications Technologies Authority of Turkey (BTK).


The company also raised its Internet speed to 1,000 Mbps, which is reportedly the highest speed in Turkey.

Superonline also plays an important role in the transfer of telecommunication services and transit data traffic between Europe, Caucasus, Asia and the Middle East. Erkan said they had agreements with more than 70 operators around the world, either for joint projects or as clients.

Platform to attract firms

“It is important that content providers choose Turkey and Istanbul. The Turkey Network Infrastructure Platform (TNAP) was created in 2011 to provide these companies with an opportunity to connect from only one point while entering and exiting the country,” he said. Superonline is one of the founders of the platform, which aims to increase Internet traffic speed, security and quality.

Erkan also said that in order to make Istanbul the capital of the Internet, legal regulations need to be completed for foreign content provider’s entering into the country. However, local Internet providers have to put aside competition between them and cooperate to reach this goal.

Superonline has clients in three segments: individual, corporate and international operators. The company has witnessed a 42-fold increase in its individual segment, a 6-fold increase in its corporate segment, and a 2.5-fold total increase over the last five years.