The 5G Auction Before October? Unlikely. By New Year’s? It’s Complicated.

Let me get straight to the point. It looks impossible for that 5G auction everyone’s been waiting for to happen in August, as some were saying. So when will it happen? Even October is looking like a long shot. Best case? We might see it in November. But first, there are some fundamental technical hurdles to clear. The big ones are the National Frequency Plan, the whole Türksat situation (I’ll explain that in a bit), and the snail’s pace at the BTK (Turkish ICT Authority).

Honestly, the technical preparations for the auction itself and the bidding process are the easy parts; those can be sorted out quickly. After the auction, getting the operators to set up their 5G networks and start broadcasting a signal (at least in limited areas) will also be relatively painless. The real challenge—expanding coverage and building the high-speed infrastructure—depends on how fast we can roll out fiber and how much the operators are willing to invest.

First, the BTK Needs to Do Its Homework

Turkey’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) creates a work plan every year, telling the public what it plans to do and when. Here’s a little secret: I have yet to see them actually complete a task by their own deadline.

And guess what? There’s an item in the BTK’s 2025 Work Plan about 5G.

The plan is to prepare a policy proposal for 5G authorization in Turkey. This strategy paper will then be submitted to the ministry. It’s expected to cover not just technical details like which frequency bands will be auctioned, but also things like the license duration.

The BTK has scheduled this work to be completed in September. Until this paper is written and approved, it’s technically impossible to make the necessary adjustments to the National Frequency Plan.

The National Frequency Plan and the Spectrum Up for Grabs

Now, I don’t know how familiar you are with this, so let me quickly break down the National Frequency Plan. Think of it as Turkey’s master plan for all radio waves—from your car radio and walkie-talkies to mobile phones and satellites. It dictates who can use which part of the spectrum and for what purpose. This plan is shaped by Turkey’s needs but generally follows international recommendations.

As it stands, we’ve already licensed a total of 549.2 MHz of spectrum for mobile broadband services.

So, what’s next? Turkey plans to open up new sub-6 GHz bands for 5G, in line with the EU, including the 700 MHz, 3.4-3.8 GHz, and other bands. This could potentially add another 690 MHz of spectrum for commercial mobile services.

But here’s the catch: all of these adjustments depend on that policy paper from the BTK. Without the paper, we can’t even determine which spectrum blocks will be in the auction. Funnily enough, the 700 MHz band, which is slated to be auctioned, is also supposed to be partly reserved for public safety and emergency communications. How will that work? Nobody knows yet.

Bottom line: First comes the strategy paper, then the frequency planning, and only then the auction itself.

And Then There’s the Whole Türksat Situation…

In the middle of all this, we have the Türksat issue. Over the weekend, I wrote about the rumors that Türksat might emerge as a new competitor to Turkcell, Türk Telekom, and Vodafone. I want to underline again: Türksat is not going to become a consumer-facing mobile operator. There are no preparations for that.

However, Türksat is the government’s go-to contractor for many public services, like emergency communications. Remember how I mentioned parts of the 700 MHz and 2600 MHz bands are being set aside for public safety?

Türksat will need a slice of the 5G spectrum to handle these public safety and emergency communications. And if you recall that 5G is fundamentally an industrial technology, not just a consumer one, it’s also likely that Türksat will provide 5G solutions for strategic defense companies like Aselsan, Roketsan, and Tusaş. It could be seen as a national security risk to have companies like Turkcell or Türk Telekom—whose ownership could change tomorrow, even though they’re currently under the Turkey Wealth Fund—or a foreign-owned company like Vodafone providing these critical services.

Türksat has to step in to fill this gap.

But here’s a crucial detail: Türksat can’t just decide to do this on its own. It needs to be officially tasked by the government. And that requires a law to be passed by the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM). The Parliament is currently on recess and won’t be back until October. So, Türksat’s role—and by extension, the spectrum it needs—cannot be determined until Parliament is back in session.

And you can’t have a proper auction until you know what’s happening with Türksat.

So, to wrap this all up: we’re going to be waiting a bit longer for the 5G auction. Of course, there’s always the possibility that a decision is made overnight and this all gets resolved in a day. But I’m telling you, under normal circumstances, looking at all these technical and political details, we won’t see an auction before November.