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. Currently Türk Telekom's TTNETADSL2+ service is the most widely used Internet service in Turkey, offering speeds from 8 Mbit/s to 24 Mbit/s. TTNET offers VDSL2 service with speeds at 25 Mbit/s to 100 Mbit/s as well. Alternative broadband companies, while mostly still using TTNET infrastructure, such as SmileADSL and Biri are also available. Superonline is offering fibre broadband in limited areas in 12 cities, 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 UyduNET, offering speeds from 10 Mbit/s to 100 Mbit/s. In March 2012, TTNet and Superonline, which between themselves provide the bulk of Turkish broadband Internet access, have started applying "fair use" policies that are overly restrictive in terms of the allowed download and upload quotas. Most accounts are allotted 50 GB download quotas, after which the bandwidth is reduced 10-fold, down to 3 Mbit/s. Some users have reported that their broadband speeds were reduced in six days into the month. Both companies have been under heavy criticism for their "fair use" policies. TTNET's monopoly and perceived excessive pricing have received numerous criticisms from users over the years. According to TÜSİAD, Turkey has 36 million active Internet users with 10 million active e-commerce users. 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 - amounting to 88% of Turkish households having internet access. 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. In January 2017the government unveiled plans to build a domestic web search engine and webmail service. Internet Entrepreneurship in Turkey, also called "Digital Bosphorus" has reached several exits in last years. The biggest three of them have been Yemeksepeti, Gittigidiyor and Markafoni. According to Sina Afra, the potential of the Turkish Internet market is bigger than in many other European countries. Internet in Turkey holds a 'Not Free' ranking in Freedom House's index. Turkish government has constantly blocked websites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and as of May 2017, Wikipedia is currently inaccessible. According to Twitter's transparency report, Turkey leads in social media censorship.
Censorship
More than 7000 web sites in Turkey are blocked. In Turkey, the Telecommunications Communication Committee for the decision of the court is sought by barriers blocked sites. And Turkey between May 2008 and again in 2010, YouTube and many sites such as the Gabile gayromeo.com censored. Again, many words were defined as prohibited words in search engines by BTK.
