Swisscom connected over one million homes and businesses to ultra-fast broadband with mixture of fibre-optic technologies

BERNE, 31-7-2014 — /EuropaWire/ — Swisscom has connected over a million homes and businesses to ultra-fast broadband. Thanks to a mixture of fibre-optic technologies, customers are benefiting from more bandwidth – even outside the major conurbations. Since the start of 2014, bandwidth has been increased in over 200,000 homes and businesses through vectoring technology. Swisscom is one of Europe’s frontrunners when it comes to the introduction of vectoring. In addition, ten municipalities have now been connected to Fibre to the Street (FTTS), which is now being extended to over 100 more municipalities.

Whether for high-definition television, cloud services or video conferences, private individuals and companies view a capable broadband network as increasingly important. That is why Swisscom is pressing ahead with ultra-fast broadband and already supplies over a million homes and businesses with very high bandwidths. Swisscom is relying on a mix of technologies that permit ultra-fast bandwidths to supply locations outside the major conurbations: vectoring, Fibre to the Street (FTTS), Fibre to the Building (FTTB) and Fibre to the Home (FTTH). Bandwidths of up to 100 Mbps are possible, with FTTH offering up to an impressive 1 Gbps.

Swisscom is one of Europe’s frontrunners when it comes to introducing vectoringAt the beginning of 2014, Swisscom started to roll out vectoring technology into those areas where Fibre to the Curb had been installed (VDSL). Vectoring improves the transmission quality and by doing so, allows up to twice the previous bandwidth. Across Switzerland, Swisscom has switched 200,000 homes and businesses over to vectoring, which makes it one of Europe’s top providers.

The roll-out of Fibre to the Street (FTTS) has already been completed in ten municipalities, for example Croy (VD), Wila (ZH), Iragna (TI), Prêles (BE) and Rothenthurm (SZ). The network is currently being rolled out to over 100 further municipalities. Thanks to FTTS, broadband speeds of up to 100 Mbps can now be achieved. Swisscom is also collaborating with Huawei to develop G.fast, a successor technology to VDSL, and is thus continuing its valuable cooperation with its innovative partner.

The roll-out of FTTH (Fibre-to-the-Home) to homes and businesses is continuing alongside these activities. Over 800,000 homes and businesses in over 80 towns and cities have now been connected.
High investment in broadband provision throughout Switzerland

Swisscom aims to roll out ultra-fast broadband technologies to over 2.3 million homes and businesses by the end of 2015 and over 4.6 million by 2020, throughout Switzerland. Up to now, Swisscom has laid over 55,000 km of fibre-optic cabling across Switzerland. With its high annual investments, the provider makes a substantial contribution to its global rankings. According to Akamai, Switzerland is ranked first in Europe and third globally for high bandwidth coverage (>10 Mbps).

Contact

Swisscom AG
Media Relations
3050 Bern
media@swisscom.com