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discussion regarding measures to take in the country that are necessitated byconvergence. In light of this, some regulatory proposals are derived in section 5.3.taking convergence into account. The recommendations both include economic,social and cultural issues which constitute important aspects of regulation.5.1. ICT Industry in TurkeyIn line with the technological developments across the world, ICT sector haswitnessed a great development in last couple of decades in Turkey like it is the caseall around the world. In order to provide a general understanding of ICT industry inTurkey, some market data is provided below:2007 2008ICT Market (billion USD) 20.30 28.20Communications 15.50 20.50Information Technologies 4.80 7.70The percentage of ICT market in GDP (%) 4.16 4.08Communications 3.18 2.90Information Technologies 0.98 1.08Hardware 0.74 0.77Software 0.10 0.13Services 0.14 0.18The growth rate of ICT marketHardware 16.80 19.00Software 11.30 20.00Services 11.90 13.00Source: TUBISAD (Turkish Informatics Industry Association) 2008Table 5.1.: Some indicators regarding ICT sector in TurkeyAs it can be seen from Table 5.1. ICT sector is growing rapidly and its total size is28.20 billion USD as of 2008 which constitutes 4.08% 1 of GDP.Another indicator that closely affects the convergence is internet penetration which is32.2% 2 as of 2008 in the country. However, Turkey lags behind the Europeanaverage 3by means of internet penetration. Computer literacy is another factorenabling convergence in ICT industry in a country. As of 2008, percentage of1 According to the data of Turkish Informatics Industry Association2 According to the data of Information Communication Technologies Authority3 According to the Eurostat statistics, EU 27 average for 2008 is 60%.35
households with computers is 36.2% 4 in Turkey which can be regarded as a lowlevel. However, there are some projects of Turkish government in order to improvecomputer literacy across the country and facilitate the social transformation througheffective usage of ICT, so this number is expected to improve in following years.3G technology, which is important to contribute to development of broadband andthus has an accelerating effect on convergence, became operational across thecountry by the end of July 2009. It can be considered as an important developmentand in the near future, effects of convergence are expected to be perceived further.Digital broadcasting is important in terms of convergence since it leads marketplayers of broadcasting industry to play in telecommunications area as well.Regarding digital switchover that will lead switching all television services fromanalogue to digital format, Radio Television Supreme Board (RTSB) adopted theStrategy and Application Schedule on March 2005. According to this, a gradualchangeover is taking place in the country which is supposed to be completed in 2014.Besides the above mentioned developments, converged services such as VoIP,multimedia payphone services and videophone are becoming more popular acrossthe country and effects of convergence are being perceived more every day.Turkey is an official candidate country for EU membership and in this scope, legalframework of the country including information and communications sector has beenor is being reviewed to be in line with EU framework.5.2. Current Roles and Responsibilities of Regulatory Authorities in ICT SectorCurrently, there are separate regulatory authorities responsible from regulation ofICT sector in the country. The roles and responsibilities of these bodies are put forthin this section in order to serve a basis for the analysis regarding the need of a newconverged regulator.4 According to the data of Turkish Informatics Industry Association36
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