Turkcell field-tests 6G network sensing and extends its Samsung 5G phone deal to 2027

Turkcell said on 21 October that it had field-tested integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), a capability planned for 6G networks, and that analysis of live 5G signals in the C-band estimated crowd density with 90 per cent accuracy and a person's indoor position to within 3 metres, in a company statement carried by the financial news service Foreks.

The first phase ran on a mobile private network at the Istanbul Expo Center and the second at Turkcell's Küçükyalı Plaza, according to the statement. Turkcell's partner was Tiami Networks, whose PolyEdge solution was used to deploy the private 5G networks, Developing Telecoms reported. The use cases the operator listed include crowd management, indoor location, facility security, smart cities, autonomous systems and disaster management.

Vehbi Çağrı Güngör, Turkcell's deputy general manager for network technologies, said the operator could detect entries to and exits from buildings in real time under field conditions, according to the statement, and presented the absence of cameras as a privacy benefit, according to the report. Neither the statement nor the report says how accuracy was measured, how many people were in the test areas or when, if ever, the function might be offered commercially.

Where ISAC sits in the 6G timetable

ISAC is one of six usage scenarios in the ITU's framework for IMT-2030, the formal name for 6G, set out in Recommendation ITU-R M.2160, which the Radiocommunication Assembly approved in November 2023, according to the ITU's IMT-2030 page. The others are immersive communication, hyper reliable and low latency communication, massive communication, ubiquitous connectivity, and artificial intelligence and communication.

The standards work is still at the stage of requirements. The ITU invites proposals for candidate radio technologies between February 2027 and February 2029, and draft reports on technical performance requirements and on evaluation guidelines go to its Study Group 5 for approval in December 2026, the page says. A field test now is therefore a test of a capability, not of a 6G standard, which does not yet exist.

The Samsung memorandum

Two days later, on 23 October, Turkcell and Samsung signed a memorandum at Samsung's headquarters in South Korea to make 650,000 5G-compatible Samsung smartphones available to Turkcell customers by the end of 2027, at least 200,000 of them in the premium segment, Habertürk reported. The memorandum covers all of Samsung's 5G models, and a trade-in scheme aimed at customers still using 4.5G phones runs from November 2026 through 2027.

The 650,000 figure is not new. When the two companies signed at the Mobile World Congress in March, the deal itself covered 150,000 phones, 100,000 locally made Galaxy A models and 50,000 Galaxy S models, within a stated vision of 650,000 Samsung 5G devices, Türkiye Gazetesi reported. Turkcell's general manager, Ali Taha Koç, said then that about 30 per cent of phones in Türkiye were 5G-compatible. The October memorandum attaches a date and a premium floor to the target; neither report says how many of the first 150,000 have been sold.

Handsets are the gap the subscriber totals hide. Of 44.5 million 5G subscribers BTK counted at the end of the second quarter, 26.1 million were able to use the service, and the regulator gave device or SIM incompatibility as the reason, as Corridor Signal reported. The count has since passed 45 million, BTK's president said in October, and Turkcell's licence coverage duties start with villages by 2028, under the authorisation terms.