Turk Telekom boss hails global exports achievements

By Azernews

By Vugar Khalilov

Turkey's telecommunications company Turk Telekom CEO Umit Onal has hailed the company's major achievements in the global exports sphere.

Onal made the remarks in an interview with Yeni Shafak newspaper on September 13.

Onal said that Turk Telekom’s group company Argela and its subsidiary Netsia are carrying out important research and development studies in Silicon Valley, which is dubbed as a center of technological innovations, to show the world the power of Turkish engineers.

"We export technology from the Silicon Valley to the world," stressed Onal. He recalled that the company, company exports to the world technology from US-based Silicon Valley, which is considered the global technology center, carries out important work in the 5G technologies sphere.

Argela and Netsia have successfully represented Turkey in the global arena, Onal said. He pointed out that the companies are taking active roles in drawing up the 5G roadmap in Silicon Valley.

"We are very excited and proud both for our country and for Türk Telekom to be in constant interaction with the world's leading technology companies, to be inspired by innovation and success stories, to develop innovative products that transform technology into benefits and to present them to the whole world," Onal stressed.

Mentioning Silicon Valley’s importance as a first place where technological innovations emerge, he stressed that it is important for Turk Telekom to be in the center of the innovation hub and to export its goods from there.

The CEO stated that there are two main objectives behind Turk Telekom's investments in technology.

"The first is to ensure the production and use of domestic national technologies. The second is to bring our country to the forefront in the international arena with its technology and to contribute to our country's export of technology to the world. Turk Telekom largely benefits from Netsia, its company in the U.S. Silicon Valley, which it owns through its group company Argela, to achieve these two goals,” Onal added.

Speaking about the studies carried out by Turk Telekom, Onal said that the subsidiary companies Argela and Netsia have 56 registered patents worldwide in the field of 5G and new generation technologies.

He commented on Netsia’s current two research directions and said the company will provide fiber infrastructure in the global market as it does in the country.

In his words, the Netsia SEBA (SDN Enabled Broadband Access) project of Turk Telekom is attracting worldwide attention. The project enables the management of fiber networks with artificial intelligence and eliminates supplier dependency on hardware and reduces costs. It is being tested by the leading operators of England, Germany, Brazil and Taiwan. SEBA offers a significant advantage in the $1 trillion telecom market for Turk Telekom and the company has become an important player in these two areas with Netsia, Onal added.

He stressed that Turk Telekom is at the forefront of Turkey's 5G structuring and that it is determined to make Turkey a pioneer in the 5G journey by delivering the fiber, the 5G building block to the entire country, from neighborhoods to villages.

 “As of the second quarter of 2021, we have invested $17.9 billion in the digital transformation of our country, including company acquisitions, since the privatization in 2005. We have more than doubled our fiber investments in the past 10 years in order to expand the fiber infrastructure, which is indispensable for digitalization. We revised the 2021 investment target upwards twice during the year and determined it as 8.5 billion TL ($1mln), with an increase of more than 25 percent compared to the 2020 investment figure,” Onal concluded.