Damien Saunders

Youppo at www.youppo.com is a new social space in Turkey to catch up with friends with free storage for your pics and talk about what’s happening.

Youppo has been in the planning since late last year and development for it is not stopping. While very much in a beta site, we are working to add new features each week to keep the site busy and fresh.

my page is www.youppo.com/web/damien

In the last week new media marketing sites reported on a portal being developed Avea in Turkey. Secretly named GenCinSan (young people in Turkish) the site was launched this week as www.patlican.com.tr (patlican is eggplant/aubergine and a play on ‘it will explode’)

The new site is a reminder of early telco portals from the dotcom error and features include news, reviews, video, with a mix of traditional telco products and services. Tacked on to this is a 1/2 mix of web2.0 services - create your own profile and you can have a personal webpage or find other users with shared interests.

You have to join to be able to view almost anything on the site and be a customer of Avea if you want to participate …. which is all bad news for anyone checking the site. And to register, you have to give them your mobile number … funny stuff?

You can’t call this a web2.0 site as it is not driven by user generated content instead the focus is on a range of editorial content taken from other sites. Looking behind the scene its been developed by VSP/news portal e-kolay.net with support from azbuz and gayet.net. What all these sites have in common is the involvement of a leading media communications player in Turkey, Dogan Grou. Pretty powerful stuff

It might prove a nice new edition in the portal market for Turkey and relevant to Avea customers. Vodafone already offers a similar portal at netbul.com and other similar portals are mynet.com and previously mentioned e-kolay. Thats before you start looking at the long news and media sites.

Turkey’s telecommunications regulator has postponed the tender for four third-generation phone licenses. The tender, which was supposed to be held May 25, will now be held September 7, an official from the Communications Ministry said on Tuesday.

There was limited interest in the contract conditions, said Ertuğrul Karaçuha, Head of the Telecommunications Board, reported business daily Referans. Fearing the necessary tender demand would not form, the tender has been postponed to September, he said. The Telecommunications Board made the decision on Monday.

 source: http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=73976

On Monday Türk Telecom announced it will take legal action against all illicit advertisements and presentations targeting Türk Telecom and its new tariff. Competition among the companies in the telecommunications sector is becoming brutal and the announcement gave the competition a whole new dimension.

Meanwhile, Avea’s general Manager Cüneyt Türktan accused Turkcell of being inconsistent for heading to the court for the annulment of the number portability, after supporting it first.

Following the altercations among Vodafone, Avea and Turkcell similar contestations are now developing between Türk Telekom and alternative operators.

Responding to the questions related to the new Türk Telekom tariffs, “There is only one competitor for Türk Telecom - Turkcell, said Türk Telecom CEO Paul Doany, adding, Tariffs are out there. Subscribers should really take a look at them. Then they will see that we are one-quarter cheaper than them.�

“I just really don’t understand how Turkcell’s number of subscribers can keep raising with the price increase implemented, he said.

The competition is not only among the GSM operators. There also is a big competition among the companies providing long distance services, and Türk Telecom is the leading provider. Alternative operators revolted against the discounts Türk telecom implemented on long distance calls.

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=70985

Turkey has announced plans to offers for third-generation (3G) mobile phone licenses — Short-listed bidders then enter a second-round bid. The minimum bid prices range from 140 million euros ($189 million) to 252 million euros ($340 million). The Turkish mobile market is currently home to three operators, Turkcell, Vodafone-Telsim and Avea.

Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım was speaking at the Independent Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association’s (MÜSİAD) traditional Thursday talks. Yıldırım said he was expecting interest from the existing three GSM operators in Turkey — Turkcell, Vodafone (formerly Telsim) and Avea — in the investigation of feasible price studies for 3G licenses.

European countries had made mistakes by requesting high license fees in tenders, noted Yıldırım, while Japan gave the licenses for free - and Turkey plans to do something in the middle. Yıldırım also mentioned possible future financial incentives to boost research and development in the telecommunications sector.

Turkey’s officials announced at the start of 2007 the introduction of mobile number portability (MNP) for its 3 mobile operators, Vodafone, Turkcell and Avea. MNP allows customers to change carriers and keep their number, referred to as porting.

There is an element of prestige in Turkey about what your prefix number is, so allowing people to port will open up competition more, however Turkey’s largest mobile operator, Turkcell, has now filed a lawsuit calling for the cancellation of MNP. The firm says the current system would not work in the best interest of consumers and it is still waiting for the allocation of number blocks for which it is paying 15% of its revenues each month, reports Istanbul’s English-language daily, Today’s Zaman.  However you read this, it sounds like someone is threatened by prospects of losing a large number of customers who port for better calls or family reasons.

Avea, Turkey’s third largest mobile operator, has launched a legal case in an attempt to make number portability mandatory for all telecoms providers in the country, it announced yesterday. Its move is a counteraction to a lawsuit filed with the Telecommunications Board (TK) on Wednesday by Turkcell, the mobile market leader, which was an attempt to reverse the implementation of number portability, introduced at the beginning of this year.

Avea is strictly in favor of number portability, as it allows subscribers to transfer their own numbers while switching operators. Avea is exploring legal means to make it available, general manager of the company, Cüneyt Türktan said. He went on to suggest this could be a joint action joined by Vodafone or fixed line incumbent Turk Telecom

Turkish unit said on Friday it had added over one million new customers in Turkey in the first quarter taking its total customer base to 13.8 million. “This increase demonstrates that Vodafone is successfully bringing its global standards and expertise to the Turkish market and customers are responding by joining us in very significant numbers,” the unit’s Chief Executive Attila Vitai told a news conference.

Vitai said from March 31 Telsim-Vodafone would complete its brand transition and would be known only as Vodafone.

Vodafone acquired the Turkish mobile phone company Telsim in May 2006 for $4.55 billion.

Here’s a couple of ads from competing networks in Turkey currently being aired around the country.

Turkcell’s internet ad features the ‘cellbuddy’ with crazy head gear and a yellow suit demonstrating search to a child doing her homework in the dark as there is no power.

The Cellbuddies feature in all their campaigns some times as kids in bumblebee costumes othewise drawn as a bug with funny antenna … most people don’t seem sure what they are? But the kids in costumes are cool.

Telsim Vodafone’s advert features a lady making a call to her boyfriend and with the support of the team, is carried all the way to where he is working on a construction site.