This is a true story: in the late 1970s an American businessman who turned in for the night at the Turkish capital's Grand Ankara Hotel was disturbed by a man shouting in the adjacent room. When he rang reception to inquire about the cause of the bedlam he was told that his neighbour was calling Istanbul. "Why doesn't he use the telephone?" asked the American.
In those days the phone lines operated by the state-owned PTT were so bad that some businessmen flew to Athens to talk to headquarters in Europe or the US. You could wait half a day for an international call to come through and 15 years for a telephone to be installed in your home. The quickest way of obtaining a telephone was to buy it on the black market.
Not any more - Turk Telekom now ranks among the biggest telecoms providers in emerging Europe and is the jewel in the government's privatization crown. TT stands out among developing telecom operators for its high rate of digitalization and significant strength in satellite capacity. This enables it to cover Turkey's remote areas and become an important transit venue for international traffic.