Over 4 million Turks have no Internet access

Only 32 percent of the 41 percent of Turkish households with a computer have web access, according to research sponsored by the country’s largest Internet provider.

The research, which was sponsored by TTNET, found that 2.6 million out of 18 million total Turkish households, or 4.3 million people, had neither a computer nor Internet access.

The findings inspired TTNET to launch a campaign that would allow users to have Internet access for as little as 2 Turkish Liras per day used.

The number of Internet users varies drastically between urban and rural areas. Some 6 million of 11.6 million urban dwellings have at least one computer, while 4.6 million of these computers have an Internet connection. ADSL access, meanwhile, makes up 38 percent of these Internet connections.

In rural areas, 1.2 million out of 6.4 million homes have a computer, and 1 million of these homes are connected to the Internet.

The research estimates that there are 12.2 million Internet users who can access the web from their homes. Some 9 million Internet users, who include both people who have a computer but no Internet access, as well as those with neither a computer nor Internet access, do not have an Internet connection at home but use the web elsewhere.

Some 77 percent of all Internet users use the web for social networking, while 54 percent use Internet for research. Meanwhile, another 35 percent say they use the Internet for email communication. Another 13 percent use the Internet to do school work, while 4 percent use the web to gain access to e-devlet, an online government tool that provides citizens with services such as state insurance support, bill management, and university entrance exam results and placement information.

Meanwhile, 36.2 percent of Internet users who have Internet access at home read newspapers online. Another, 33.6 percent play games on the Internet, 21.6 percent download music, 18.6 percent download films and 10.6 percent read and post in forums on the web.

Some 9 percent of all internet users use online banking, 8.4 percent run errands for work, 6.6 percent follow blogs, 5.7 percent look up recipes, 5.2 percent listen to online radios, 4.7 percent watch re-runs of TV programs and 4.4 percent watch TV.

For those with no Internet connection at home, 45 percent said they could not afford the connection. Another 37 percent say they had no need for it, 30 percent said they did not own a computer, and 9 percent said they preferred not to use the Internet. Four percent say they used to have an Internet connection but terminated their subscription to an Internet provider later.

ADSL connection in Turkey has only been available for the past 7 years, said Tahsin Yılmaz, manager of TTNET.

The company, meanwhile, has 6 million subscribers, Yılmaz said, adding that it was trying to improve services by introducing an online TV portal in addition to the already up-and-running music portal that receives 500 thousand hits a day.