Expanding its cooperation with the US technology company Juniper Networks in January, Turk Telekom will export its solutions that will strengthen the global 5G ecosystem to the world.
Raising gears for technology exports from Turkey, Turk Telekom signed two important collaborations in Silicon Valley.
Expanding its existing cooperation with the US technology company Juniper Networks, Turk Telekom also cooperated with Plug and Play in order to contribute to the Turkish startups becoming global players.
Accelerating its work in Silicon Valley and collaborating with the world’s leading technology companies, Turk Telekom’s efforts and future goals in this context were shared at the meeting held with the participation of Turk Telekom CEO Umit Onal.
Umit Onal stated that they made a new goodwill agreement with Juniper, with whom they had a cooperation in January, to further develop their existing cooperation on new areas that will create long-term income, and said:
“As Turk Telekom, we successfully represent our country in the global arena by taking active roles in drawing the roadmap for 5G. Our cooperation with Juniper, which we have taken one step further today, is a concrete step that demonstrates our determination to export technology to the world. We are determined to make Turkey a pioneer in the 5G journey.
As part of the cooperation we made with Juniper in January, Argela’s professional expert staff of 8 was transferred to Juniper. As a result of the mutual agreement made with Juniper, it was decided to increase the existing capacity by two times and to increase the number of Argela engineers to 15 people to work within Juniper. As Turk Telekom, we will continue to support the project and contribute to this technology with our engineers at Argela in Turkey. We offer the success of Turkish engineering to the service of the world by increasing our employment capacity in cooperation with Juniper.”
“Our relationship with Turk Telekom and Argela witnessed much more interaction”
Juniper Networks CEO Rami Rahim reminded that they made a partnership with Turk Telekom-Argela’s subsidiary Netsia in January to exclusively license and develop the “RIC” technology, which will simplify the path to 5G, accelerating the core business goals of operators.
In this context, Rahim pointed out that the relations with Turk Telekom and Argela witnessed much more interaction and continued to expand with the first talks on a new cooperation with Argela for monitoring the network performance.
“Juniper has restructured the RIC platform, making significant investments in developing new functions and expanding the RIC architecture. We are determined to enter laboratory and field tests with Turk Telekom, and our teams are working in coordination to implement this platform first in Turk Telekom’s 4G network and finally in the 5G network.
In the future, we see opportunities to continue integration with the rest of our 5G portfolio, which offers savings in investment expenditures associated with networking, energy efficiency and experience-oriented automation, by implementing new business models and networking. I look forward to the success we will experience together in the marketplace and to continue our role as trusted advisors to global service providers who are undergoing major transformations not only in their networks but in their companies as a whole.”
RIC technology developed by Netsia will play an active role in determining global 5G standards
According to the information given, Turk Telekom is working hard with its subsidiaries with the responsibility of leading Turkey’s digital transformation and shaping the future with 5G and new generation technologies.
Continuing to expand its fiber household coverage to 27.9 million as of the first half of 2021, Turk Telekom continues to digitize the health, education and energy sectors with its innovative digital services and investments in technology initiatives.
Turk Telekom, with its corporate technology solutions and world-class new generation technologies it has brought to the sector, while continuing on its way determined to make Turkey a pioneer in its 5G journey, it has been working for a long time on new RIC technologies that will play an active role in determining global 5G standards, with a team of mainly Turkish engineers, together with its group company Argela and its subsidiary Netsia.
Turk Telekom’s long-standing R&D studies on 5G continue at full speed through group companies such as Argela and Netsia, which produce value in the field of information technologies. With its recent 5G trials, the company brought many new technologies such as Turkey’s “first 5G live match broadcast”, “5G world speed records”, “Turkey’s first Industry 4.0 5G trial”, “international Clear5G project”, “Turkey’s first industrial mobile network” to Turkey for the first time.
The software developed by Netsia provides high-capacity, scalable, flexible, personalized network and service solutions for the mobile communication needs of the future.
Netsia has focused on innovation in the field of RIC for the past 5 years, and during this time, it has made significant progress in technological solution development as a pioneer in its field. RIC technology developed by Netsia will play an active role in determining global 5G standards.
Thanks to RIC technology, it will be possible to prevent unsuccessful searches by temporarily increasing the capacity in the region during disasters such as earthquakes and floods, as well as to prioritize searches and communications of first aid and rescue teams.
In addition, in order to meet the communication needs of thousands of people gathered for an important international competition or a big rally at the same time, and to prioritize the communications of the health teams and law enforcement officers in such a case, the capacity of the base stations in that neighborhood can be programmed remotely with the software.
Turk Telekom will be the “first operator to make capacity separation on the basis of base station”
While two new areas of cooperation are emerging between Turk Telekom and Juniper, Turk Telekom will become “the first operator to be able to differentiate capacity on the basis of base station” with the use of the existing RIC product in the field.
In areas requiring expertise such as installation and maintenance, Turk Telekom’s group companies Argela or Innova will be positioned. In this way, Turk Telekom aims to generate income from Turkey and the nearby geography after the sale of the RIC solution.
With this transformation, Turk Telekom plans to become an operator that sells services rather than access in the 5G world, and expands its range of services beyond access by differentiating itself in areas such as Industry 4.0 and video games with its fixed wireless access.
In a wider range, Turk Telekom aims to become Juniper’s strategic partner by further deepening its cooperation with Juniper. Thus, Turk Telekom aims to create expertise in these products by using Juniper products in its infrastructure within all group companies.
Cooperation that will inspire Turkish startups was signed in Silicon Valley
Another area of cooperation of Turk Telekom was for startups. While the announcement of the cooperation that will inspire Turkish startups is made in Silicon Valley, the company will contribute to the global arena for the initiatives it supports.
Having signed a cooperation with Plug and Play, one of the largest venture and innovation platforms in the world, which includes 21 unicorns and thousands of investments, Turk Telekom will thus support Turkish startups to become global players.
The fields of activity of the graduates of Turk Telekom’s corporate venture acceleration program PILOT extended from England to America, from India to Pakistan, from Korea to Japan, and their total investment amount exceeded $16 million. Aiming to strengthen and expand the entrepreneurial ecosystem, Turk Telekom’s contribution to this ecosystem is growing day by day.
Focusing on critical areas such as health, education and artificial intelligence in Turk Telekom’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, corporate venture capital company TT Ventures aims to reveal unicorns with the potential to carry their success to the global arena.
“We are here today to talk about Turkish unicorns one day”
Turk Telekom CEO Onal, in his speech at the meeting in Silicon Valley regarding the cooperation between Turk Telekom and Plug and Play, stated that the cooperation between the two institutions is important for domestic enterprises and that this cooperation will bring great success, and made the following assessments:
“The world’s largest companies used to talk only about their ideas in small rooms here in the past. As Turk Telekom, we crossed our path with Plug and Play, one of the world’s largest entrepreneurship and innovation platforms, working for all bright ideas, in order to ensure that the initiatives in our country are also discussed all over the world in the near future.
A total of 21 unicorns, 8 of which are in 2020, are among the startups in their investment portfolios. We are here today to talk about Turkish unicorns one day. This historical building we are in has witnessed the growth of world giant companies such as Google and PayPal. As Turkey’s digital transformation pioneer, we believe that our cooperation with such a great platform will bring great success in the world of entrepreneurship.” Onal stated that technology is valuable for them if it turns into goodness and benefit to people, and he noted that in this direction they contributed to the digitalization of these sectors by investing. For example, with DoctorTurkey, one of Turkey’s first online healthcare service platforms, with TT Ventures, to Virasoft, a local software company that provides services in the field of digital pathology, to Eltemtek, which provides engineering, project and consultancy services to critical energy infrastructure projects in the field of energy,and in the field of education, to MentalUP, a gamified education platform from PILOT graduates.
Onal said that they made a strong entry into the social media field, which has become a very important communication tool today, with Yaay, the local and national social media platform they developed within TT Ventures.
“We will ensure that important initiatives from Turkey are opened to the world”
Umit Onal noted that they will continue to create value for both the country’s economy and the brand by directing their investments to innovative products that will create synergy with the existing main business lines in their focus areas.
In line with this goal, Onal reminded that they collaborated with Plug and Play, one of the world’s largest entrepreneurship and innovation platforms, in February 2021 with the aim of making PILOT, the well-known startup acceleration program in Turkey, among the global players and ensuring the international scale of the startups they support. “Host to more than 1,700 startups, 21 of which are unicorns, Plug and Play shows how right we are for our local entrepreneurs.”
Emphasizing that they see the globalization of the PILOT program in cooperation and the entrepreneurs in its portfolio to find both business and investment opportunities in foreign markets, Onal continued as follows:
“We are planning and aiming for the entrepreneurs to be selected for our PILOT program in the coming period to have a more important place in the investments to be made by TT Ventures. In this direction, we will scale the TT Ventures investment portfolio on a global scale and enable important startups from Turkey to open up to the world. With the long-standing PILOT program, we increase the opportunities we provide every year. By keeping up with the increasing global competition, we prepare our initiatives not only for the local but also for the global arena. We provide 3 startups to be selected among this year’s PILOT graduate startups with the opportunity to participate in the acceleration program of Plug and Play, the world’s largest startup and innovation platform. We will also consider the option of investing in startups participating in this program.
The startups that will participate in Plug and Play’s 1-month acceleration program will also be entitled to benefit from Plug and Play’s rich network, to develop business with corporate companies in this network, to access angel investors and the global entrepreneurial ecosystem. These startups will be able to participate in the Plug and Play EXPO/Demo Day and use the office space within the Plug and Play during this 1 month. I would like to congratulate our friends who will participate in the program in advance and wish them to make the most of this program and achieve important successes for our country.”
We provide acceleration support to 1,000 more companies in places such as Abu Dhabi, Munich, Paris, Istanbul”
Plug and Play CEO Saeed Amidi stated that they provide financial support to startups with the company they founded in 2006.
Stating that they supported a startup called Google before Plug and Play was established, Amidi said:
“They left the building where they came as 3 people when they were 50 people. Another of our customers was PayPal. In this process, I said to myself; ‘If I have a bigger building, more Google and PayPal can come.’ With this goal, we are currently providing acceleration support to 1,000 more companies in places such as Abu Dhabi, Munich, Paris and Istanbul.
In addition to the investments we make in these startups, we bring them together with big companies such as Turk Telekom, Telefonica, Mercedes and Fiat. We opened our Istanbul office in January. Our goal is to bring entrepreneurs in Istanbul together with our supporters from other parts of the world as part of the innovation there.”
Cash support provided by Turk Telekom to startups will reach approximately ₺9 million
Turk Telekom contributes to the growth of PILOT graduates by investing with TT Ventures.
Turk Telekom, one of Turkey’s highest-investing technology brands, aims to strengthen and expand the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and leads a developed entrepreneurial culture to carry Turkey into the future. Supporting technology initiatives with the PILOT program, which has been ongoing since 2013, with this goal, Turk Telekom has provided 73 startups with cash support of more than ₺5 million in total with PILOT.
With the 18 startups in the ongoing 9th term of PILOT, the number of graduates will reach 91 at the end of the year, and the total cash support provided by Turk Telekom to startups will reach approximately ₺9 million. The number of employment provided by PILOT graduates by the end of 2021 is expected to exceed 1500.
Turk Telekom has recently invested in 4 more artificial intelligence initiatives with TT Ventures. TT Ventures, which invests in Syntonym, Optiyol, Quant Wi-Fi and B2Metric companies, which have formed their strategies to offer their products and services especially in foreign markets, doubled its venture portfolio. 3 of the 4 startups in question are among the PILOT graduates.
Source: AA / Translated by Irem Yildiz