Internet in Turkey

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The Internet in Turkey has been available to the public since 1993, although experimentation at Ege University started in 1987. The first available connections were dial-up. Cable Internet has been available since 1998 and ADSL since 2001. Turkey has 70 million active Internet users as of 2022.{{Cite web|last=Kemp|first=Simon|url=https://data.tuik.gov.tr/Bulten/Index?p=Hanehalki-Bilisim-Teknolojileri-(BT)-Kullanim-Arastirmasi-2021-37437|title=TUIK 2022: Turkey|publisher=TUIK Kurumsal|date=18 August 2021|access-date=18 April 2022|archive-date=23 March 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220323140602/https://data.tuik.gov.tr/Bulten/Index?p=Hanehalki-Bilisim-Teknolojileri-(BT)-Kullanim-Arastirmasi-2021-37437|url-status=live}}

Currently Türk Telekom is the most widely used Internet service in Turkey, offering speeds from 16 Mbit/s to 1000 Mbit/s. Alternative broadband companies, while mostly still using Turk Telekom infrastructure, such as TurkNet is also available meanwhile building their own fibre infrastructure in 5 cities{{Cite web |date=2024-06-30 |title=Turknet Gigafiber |url=https://turk.net/gigafiber |access-date=2024-06-30 |website=Turknet |quote="TurkNet GigaFiber şu an için İstanbul, İzmir, Bursa, Ankara ve Kocaeli bölgelerinde bulunuyor."}} and offering only 1000 Mbit/s speed. Superonline is offering fibre broadband in 28 cities,{{Cite web |title=Turkcell Superonline Fiber İnternet |url=https://www.superonline.net/internet/fiber/fiber-internet |access-date=2024-06-30 |website=Turkcell Superonline}} though the company is enlarging at a healthy pace. They currently offer up to 1000 Mbit/s speeds. Furthermore, relatively wide but not universal coverage of cable Internet is maintained by Kablonet, offering speeds from 16 Mbit/s to 1000 Mbit/s.

Türk Telekom's monopoly and perceived excessive pricing have received numerous criticisms from users over the years.

The penetration and the usage of credit cards are very high in Turkey. However development of alternative payment systems will be helpful both by facilitating the shopping of the consumers owning credit cards and by familiarizing non-credit card holders with the e-commerce. In 2019 it was reported that the Internet users of Turkey had reached to 69,107,183 (12th highest number of internet users worldwide){{Cite web|url=https://www.internetworldstats.com/top20.htm|title=Internet Top 20 Countries - Internet Users 2019|website=www.internetworldstats.com|access-date=2019-09-13|archive-date=2020-01-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200111232922/https://www.internetworldstats.com/top20.htm|url-status=dead}} - amounting to 88% of Turkish households having internet access.{{Cite web|url=http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/over-88-of-turkish-households-have-internet-access-146093|title=Over 88% of Turkish households have internet access - Latest News|website=Hürriyet Daily News|language=en|access-date=2019-09-13}} Wi-Fi in Turkey is free in all areas and easily accessible to all the citizens. Hotels, hostel, railway stations, airports have free access to internet and Wi-Fi.

Turkey implements protectionist policies to stimulate the local internet technology industry and enforce data retention: In 2016 payment gateway PayPal was forced to cease most of its operations in the country.{{Cite news|url=https://d8news.com/startups-face-new-uncertainties-paypal-announces-turkey-withdrawal-1237|title=Startups face new uncertainties as PayPal announces Turkey withdrawal - D8 News|date=2016-05-31|newspaper=D8 News|language=en-US|access-date=2017-01-11}}

Internet Entrepreneurship in Turkey, also called "Digital Bosphorus"{{cite web|title=Digital Bosphorus|url=http://www.sinaafra.com/digital-bosphorus-the-state-of-the-turkish-ecommerce-2013/|website=Sina Afra|date=31 March 2013 |access-date=8 October 2016}} has reached several exits in last years. The biggest three of them have been Yemeksepeti,{{cite web|title=Yemeksepeti sold|url=http://www.milliyet.com.tr/yemeksepeti-589-milyon-dolara-pembenar-detay-yemek-2054297/|website=Milliyet|access-date=9 October 2016}} Gittigidiyor{{cite web|title=Gittigidiyor sold to eBay|url=https://techcrunch.com/2011/04/12/ebay-acquires-turkish-marketplace-gittigidiyor/|website=Techcrunch|access-date=9 October 2016}} and Markafoni.{{cite web|title=Markafoni acquired by Naspers|url=https://techcrunch.com/2011/07/07/naspers-values-turkish-ecommerce-giant-markafoni-at-200-million-buys-70-stake/|website=Techcrunch|access-date=9 October 2016}} According to Sina Afra, the potential of the Turkish Internet market is bigger than in many other European countries.{{cite web|title=Future of Turkish Internet|url=http://www.sinaafra.com/the-turkish-ecommerce/|website=sinaafra.com|date=24 November 2011 |access-date=9 October 2016}}

Internet in Turkey holds a 'Not Free' ranking in Freedom House's index.{{cite web|title=Freedom on the Net 2016|url=https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2016|website=freedomhouse.org|access-date=1 May 2017}} Turkish government has constantly blocked websites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and as of May 2017, Wikipedia was inaccessible{{cite web|title=Turkey Blocks: Incident Reports and News|url=https://turkeyblocks.org/reports/|website=turkeyblocks.org|access-date=1 May 2017}} According to Twitter's transparency report, Turkey leads in social media censorship.{{cite web|title=Turkey leads in social media censorship: new Twitter transparency report|url=https://turkeyblocks.org/2017/03/21/turkey-leads-social-media-censorship-new-twitter-transparency-report/|website=turkeyblocks.org|date=21 March 2017 |access-date=1 May 2017}} till 15 January 2020; Wikipedia opened to access after the Constitutional Court of Turkey ruled that the block of Wikipedia violated human rights and ordered it to be lifted on 26 December 2019.{{cite news| last = McKernan| first = Bethan| title = Turkey's Wikipedia block violates human rights, high court rules| newspaper = The Guardian| date = 26 December 2019| url = https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/26/turkish-court-wikipedia-block-lifted| access-date = 26 December 2019| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20191226153211/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/26/turkish-court-wikipedia-block-lifted| archive-date = 26 December 2019| url-status = live}}