vodafone Turkey CEO Engin Aksoy made very striking statements within the scope of the meeting held today.
According to the news in HaberTürk Today, Vodafone held a 2023 evaluation and 2024 outlook meeting. Touching on many issues at the meeting, from the development of fiber infrastructure to the introduction of 5G in Turkey, Vodafone CEO Engin Aksoy, “We are making very high investments, but on the other hand, our income is decreasing. Our tax obligations need to be simplified. There is a terrible tax burden. “We also want to invest in fiber infrastructure, but we are told not to do it.” he said. Engin Aksoy specific to taxes, “Communication still remains a low item in the inflation package. Since the majority of our customers are under contract, we incur losses because we cannot reflect this to our contracted customers during the period when the service we receive is increased. For this reason, we reduced the contract periods from 2 years to 12 months. In addition, we make very high investments, but on the other hand, our income is decreasing. There is a saying we always say: taxes kill taxes. Our tax liabilities need to be simplified so that both we and the state can earn higher profits. There is a terrible tax burden. On the one hand, we are not a sector that is encouraged or receives incentives. “We expect there to be incentives and regulations for investments.” he said.
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Aksoy emphasized that it would be in the interest of the country to facilitate the infrastructure installations in the strategy to be created and to reveal the economic growth and added value that digitalization will bring. “In this context, one of the important issues is the prioritization of fiber expansion. Fiber investment is not a job that can be left to a single company; bringing fiber to all households will take 2050 at the current investment rate. For this purpose, infrastructure installation legislation needs to be improved, fiber infrastructure installation needs to be accelerated, different models, including common infrastructure companies, should be evaluated in order to ensure competition in fiber access, and fiber access conditions must be brought to a level that will ensure that all players in the sector provide services at a fair price and service quality level.
To ensure competition in fiber in the world, models such as structural separation of incumbent operators and joint infrastructure companies are being implemented. We cannot invest anywhere. We have passed the places that have fiber, we cannot even invest in places that do not have it. We are making our applications but still cannot do it. There are cases where applications take more than 18 months. We are prevented by saying that an operator will invest here. We are told not to do it. If we continue at this rate, fiber will reach all homes in 2050. We are not criticizing just one company here. We criticize public policy. A company cannot have the capacity to take fiber everywhere. “We want to invest in common infrastructure.” said.