Why did Türk Telekom merge into one?

You have seen it on the news, you have watched the commercials: Türk Telekom has merged into one entity by merging with Avea and TTNET, becoming the biggest telecommunications company in Turkey. 

Since the commercials aired on TV, people have been talking about this merger. However, many are talking about the new logo, the money spent on the advertising campaign and the disappearance of Avea logo on their mobile device screens. 

Only a few are interested about the “why.” The real question is not how much money was spent on the campaign but why Türk Telekom merged with Avea and TTNET. 

The answer is the same reason why Turkcell merged with Superonline. Convergence. It is described as the combination of multiple services through lines of telecommunication from a single provider. It has proven to be a much stronger trend than anticipated. The customers do not want the hassle of talking to different companies for what seems to them to be one technology. They expect their telecommunication provider to give them access to everything. They expect everything to be Internet-based. That’s why Türk Telekom underlines the existence of a fiber network in their communications. 

They have the longest fiber network in Turkey. That’s their leverage against Turkcell. Now they have to make Turkish people understand the importance of fiber. 

So what will happen now? Will the merger of TTNET, Avea and Türk Telekom in Türk Telekom overpower the merger of Superonline and Turkcell by Turkcell? And what will Vodafone do about it? 

It remains to be seen but I wish all these changes will be reflected by the speed and availability of Internet throughout Turkey. We are talking about big mergers and convergence, which is all fine, but we still rank 51st in terms of broadband speed globally according to Akamai’s latest survey. 

This needs to be improved if we expect more from either Türk Telekom or Turkcell.