Türkiye has not authorised LEO satellite broadband, and Turkcell lists a change as a risk

Low-earth-orbit satellite internet is not authorised in Türkiye, and the country's largest mobile operator treats a change in that rule as a business risk. "Even though these services are not presently authorized and remain subject to legislative approval in Türkiye, any change in the authorization regime that would enable the provision of internet services via LEO satellites may pose a competitive risk in the mid-term, as it could act as a substitute for the existing services we offer," Turkcell says in its annual report on Form 20-F for 2025. Across the Caspian, Kazakhstan took the opposite route in 2025 and has since added a satellite-to-phone service.

The contrast makes Türkiye the clearest case in the corridor of a market where the licensing question for LEO broadband is still open, and where the incumbent's own filing explains what is at stake.

The authorisation record

Method: the Turkish rows come from Turkcell's Form 20-F for 2025, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on 17 April 2026, in its risk factors, its description of Turkish telecoms regulation and its operating data. The Kazakh rows come from the digital ministry's June 2025 statement, published on the state Otandastar Foundation's site, and from VEON's release of 29 September 2026. No Turkish regulator document on LEO services was available to Corridor Signal.

How a licence would work in Türkiye

Under the Electronic Communications Law, as summarised in the filing, the regulator, the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (ICTA), authorises services either by notification, where no scarce resource is allocated, or by granting usage rights where frequencies or satellite positions must be assigned. Usage rights can run for up to 25 years. Where only a limited number of operators can use a resource, the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure sets the criteria, including the authorisation policy for services that need a national satellite position and frequency band, the start date, the duration and the number of operators, while the ICTA grants the authorisation.

That structure matters because a LEO broadband service needs both spectrum rights and, in practice, ground infrastructure. Turkcell's wording, "subject to legislative approval", suggests that its reading is that the existing rules would need changing, not simply an application to the regulator. The filing does not say what change it expects or when.

Satellite services as such are not new in Türkiye. Turkcell Superonline has been authorised as a satellite communication service provider since 24 March 2009, and Turkcell's tower company, Global Tower, holds a satellite service licence from the ICTA and runs closed VSAT and SCPC networks with more than a thousand terminals for its own mobile network, corporate customers and public institutions, according to the 20-F.

What LEO would compete with

Turkcell identifies the services LEO could substitute for. The obvious one is fixed wireless access. Its Superbox product, offered to households where its fibre is not available and run over 4.5G and 5G networks, had 716,100 subscribers at the end of 2025, up from 680,300 a year earlier, the filing shows. Superbox is the kind of service a satellite dish could replace in a village without fibre, which is why the risk is described as a substitute for existing services rather than a new market.

The 5G licence adds a timing element. Turkcell must cover at least 95 per cent of the population of every settlement of 500 or more people by 1 January 2028 under its 5G authorisation, according to the same document. An LEO authorisation before then would let satellite operators reach the same small settlements that terrestrial operators are being required to cover.

Kazakhstan resolved the question by agreement. In June 2025 its digital ministry said Starlink had committed to comply fully with Kazakh legislation on information security and communications, which allowed citizens to buy, operate and register terminals legally, according to the ministry statement. In September 2026 Beeline Kazakhstan launched Starlink's satellite-to-mobile service, according to a VEON release. In that model a licensed mobile operator sells the satellite service to its own customers.

Türkiye has not published an equivalent decision in any document reviewed here. Until it does, Turkcell's risk factor is the most specific public statement of where LEO broadband stands in the country, and of who would feel the change first.