Kazakhstan weighs 5G caps while Türkiye's new licences run to 2042

Kazakhstan's competition agency proposed on 14 October to limit how much 5G spectrum one operator or group of related companies can acquire, BES.media reported, while Türkiye's new licences run to 31 December 2042, Turkcell's filing says.

The Spectrum Calendar lists the auctions, licence expiries and coverage deadlines in the corridor's mobile markets that can be dated from a document, with the document linked in every row. Where no document was found, the edition says so rather than estimating. This first edition reflects material available on 17 October 2026 and will be updated as dates move.

The Kazakh proposal, the calendar's newest item, would also offer spectrum in 10 MHz blocks that can be combined and set terms of 15 to 25 years for newly allocated frequencies, the report said, citing an agency release. The report gives no auction date. The proposal follows the 2022 auction, in which two 100 MHz lots sold for a combined 156 billion tenge against a starting price of 1.76 billion tenge each, the same report says. Both lots, at 3600 to 3700 MHz and 3700 to 3800 MHz, went to Kcell and Mobile Telecom-Service, at the time both Kazakhtelecom subsidiaries, Developing Telecoms reported in January 2023.

What the rows show

Türkiye has the longest horizon. Turkcell's half-year filing says the tender of 16 October 2025 moves operators from existing authorisations expiring on 30 April 2029 to an authorisation running until 31 December 2042, and puts Turkcell's own 5G licence at USD 1.2 billion excluding VAT, according to its Form 6-K. The tender allocated 400 MHz across the 700 MHz and 3.5 GHz bands in 11 packages for close to $3 billion, Mobile World Live reported.

Georgia and Armenia are now in their build-out windows. Georgia's winners must extend 5G coverage over seven years from the June 2025 auction, which points to 2032 for the end of the schedule, and Armenia's permits carry duties due within three to seven years of April 2025, or between 2028 and 2032. Both figures are Data Desk readings of the regulators' timetables; neither regulator publishes the interim milestones in the releases linked above. Georgia's releases also do not state a licence term. For the 2024 round, Georgia Today reported that Magticom obtained 15-year rights.

What the calendar does not yet show

For Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, this edition found no published auction notice, award or licence expiry in the regulator and ministry documents reviewed, so those countries have no rows. For Kazakhstan, the terms of the 2022 licences and the date of any new auction are not in the documents reviewed, and the agency's proposal has been read through the press report because the release page could not be opened without JavaScript.

Method

A row enters the calendar only when a dated document supports it: a regulator's release, a filing or an ITU notice, with a press report used where no primary text was available and named as such. Dates are reproduced as published. Year ranges for coverage duties are Data Desk calculations from the start dates and periods stated by the regulators. The calendar is updated as dates move; readers can send documents to the Data Desk.