Turkish leading mobile phone operator, Turkcell, is set to beef up its planned 5G network, deploy AI in its mobile core and commence its 6G network after separate deals with Ericsson and Mavenir. Ericsson last week announced that it had been selected by Turkcell to jointly develop, integrate, and deploy advanced RAN solutions to fast-track its evolution towards 5G Advanced capabilities, leveraging the recent commercial launch of 5G services in Turkey.
Turkcell and Ericsson also signed an agreement under which they will accelerate adoption of cloud-native and automated network architectures to enable faster time-to-market for innovative services. Technology domains covered by the MoU include RedCap, cloud RAN, service management and orchestration and intelligent rApps. Announcing the deal in a statement, Turkcell CTO, Vehbi Çağrı Güngör said “with our commercial 5G Advanced launch in Türkiye, our priority is to evolve the network into a cloud-native, automation-driven platform that can scale new services faster.
“This collaboration with Ericsson accelerates that journey. Ultimately, we will deliver more reliable, lower-latency connectivity and unlock new use cases such as AR/VR and industrial IoT for both consumers and enterprises.” Turkcell has not yet commercially launched 5G, nor have rival telcos Vodafone and Türk Telekom.
All three telcos paid a collective US$2.125 billion for 700-MHz and 3.5-GHz spectrum in the country’s 5G spectrum auction in October 2025. Turkey’s Transportation and Infrastructure minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu confirmed earlier this week that all three telcos are set to launch nationwide 5G services in all 81 provincial centres at the start of next month, according to media reports.
Even so, Turkcell is already setting its sights on the next ‘G’. Under another MoU also revealed on Wednesday, Ericsson and Turkcell agreed to collaborate on 6G research and development in Turkey.
That MoU focuses on key technologies, including agentic AI, autonomous network enablers, and digital twins for network operations.
