Broadband and journalism in Turkey

Journalism and telecommunications have a marriage to foster Broadband Society. Turkey (case analyzed in collaboration with Israa Groof) has been recognized as a center of commerce as its land connects to the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa. This geographical location, being the mainland of Anatolia, holds an extraordinary geo-strategic value. 

Rapid expansion of communications, software and hardware segments of ICT industries in Turkey have made a significant investment in upgrading mobile networks to broadband. Broadband is a type of data transmission in which a single medium can carry several channels at once. 

Common broadband internet service technologies include cable, DSL, fiber and satellite. Broadband mobile networks in Turkey were only launched in 2009, however by the end of 2010 a quarter of the population were capable of accessing high-speed wireless service. Nowadays, around 4 million of the population use broadband.

Importance of broadband to journalists

               

Expanding broadband is essential to create jobs, increase employers productivity, which leads to an increase in consumer surplus. One of the jobs that require broadband is journalism. The job includes spreading awareness to the public about different kind of issues, that might be political, cultural, economical or sports. In order for journalists to become successful, it is important to have a high speed internet access. The audience is expecting to receive fast information about current events, especially for digital journalism, also known as online journalism. It is a modern form of journalism in which information is posted on the web instead of print.

The journalistic news are presented by a combination of text, audio, video and distributed through digital media platforms. The fast spread of digital journalism is caused by the few barriers to entry, low distribution costs, and varied computer networking. Instead of being limited by traditional media like newspapers, magazines, radio, and television the information now is more democratized and less controlled. In addition, more creativity can be produced with digital journalism when compared to traditional journalism. This would not be possible without a fast internet connection.

Broadband internet subscriptions are increasing from day to day. Data shows that the youthful population of Turkey consume the internet the most, increasing the usage and popularity of internet on mobile phones, tablets and computers. Turkey has three main mobile operators, Turkcell, Avaya and Vodafone. In 2008, they were given licenses for 3G. The 3G market has rapidly evolved over recent years and is expected to reach a saturation ratio of 91.3% by 2017.

The mobile companies in Turkey competed against each other to provide the best service to their customers. In the beginning of 2013, the operators invested around 405 million Turkish Liras.

However, the country faced economical and social barriers to efficiently absorb broadband technologies on a large scale. When compared to economically developed countries, Turkey has recorded somewhat poor performance and has not been able to close the broadband gap. By the second quarter of 2010, the leading countries reached penetration levels above 35 percent while Turkey achieved only a 9.4 percent subscription based penetration rate. Despite that, the fixed broadband penetration rate in Turkey still tops some European countries such as Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, and Romania, and is very close to the rates in Portugal, Hungary, and Spain. Moreover, broadband penetration gap is the divide in performance of countries. The broadband gap is defined as the difference between benchmark countries and host country in terms of adoption of broadband technologies generally measured in household or population penetration. In the case of Turkey, there is a remarkable fixed broadband gap as compared to other OECD members.

Backbone network

There are two main technologies or platforms over which broadband services have been delivered to consumers. The first is Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), which requires upgrading the legacy Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Secondly, the cable-modem technology, which involves upgrading the cable-TV network.

Turkish businesses have high rate of broadband usage and as compared to 27 EU countries Turkey slightly exceeds the EU averages.

In Turkey, xDSL is the most commonly used technology connecting 94 percent of broadband subscribers. Whereas, 3.9 percent of the subscribers use cable networks and 2 percent of subscribers have fiber technologies for broadband access. The amount of xDSL subscribers has reached 6.6 million by end of 2010. Conversely, Turkish broadband is fairly far more focused on conventional technologies like xDSL, when compared to EU countries.

As has been noted, even though there have been important market developments that reflect the overall potential in demand and supply, the majority of Turkish broadband organization is based on traditional forms of connectivity devices which do not allow high bandwidth data services such as advanced multichannel television, e-health and telemedicine. Turkey transitioned from a dial up network structure to a broadband dominated one at a rapid pace. Turkey’s fiber Internet backbone offers high-speed connections, but this has not translated to a high number of broadband users.

Currently, Turkey’s telecom has the foundation on which to build a lively, truly national broadband network that benefits and spreads to all people. To influence that foundation and solve current barriers, many measures have been identified that are impactful, reasonable, and slightly disruptive. All of these processes have succeeded in other countries whose situations are similar to Turkey’s, countries that had a good supply of broadband capacity except focused on building demand through wider distribution channels, low costs, and better local content.

"According to the The National Broadband Vision study, broadband could boost economic growth by 0.8-1.7 percentage points per year. This economic momentum enabled by an enhanced broadband ecosystem would create 180,000-380,000 new jobs each year." (InfoDev). After all, if Turkey can overcome these barriers, the results could be significant.

We analyze international broadband evolution (in this case, the Turkish one) in this blog, in Research Group about Digital Journalism and Marketing and Broadband and in Research Group on Innovative Monetization Systems of Digital Journalism, Marketing and Tourism (SIMPED), from CECABLE,  Escola Universitària Mediterrani of UdG, UPF and Blanquerna-URL, in Twitter (@CECABLEresearch), Google+, in the group of LinkedIn, in the page of LinkedIn, in the group of Facebook, in Instagram (CECABLE), in Pinterest and in this blog. We will go in deep in the XXII Cable and Broadband Catalonia Congress (4-5 April, 22@, UPF).