Big providers have to protect themselves against power outages: This is how expensive your mobile phone subscription is becoming

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As if Swiss households didn’t have enough money to cope with rising rents and additional costs: they could also prepare for price increases in mobile phone tariffs in the future.

This is due to stricter federal regulations on major cell phone providers. They must ensure that their networks continue to operate even during a nationwide power outage. Swisscom, Sunrise and Salt were affected. In the event of a power outage, the antennas must continue transmitting for up to 72 hours at a time, SonntagsZeitung writes. In the event of a severe power outage, the mobile network must continue operating for 14 consecutive days.

Annual price increase from 3.60 to 8.40 francs

To meet the requirement, providers must retrofit their transmission towers with emergency power supply. The Federal Council recently sent the relevant Telecommunications Directive for consultation.

This will probably not go unnoticed by mobile phone users: they should expect providers to reflect high infrastructure costs in their prices. The federal government expects prices to rise by 3.60 to 8.40 francs per year. However, network providers incur higher additional costs. According to Swisscom’s letter to the “SonntagsZeitung”, the federal government did not take into account basic costs such as staff training and on-call service in case of crisis.

Power outage every 30 years

Both subscriptions and prepaid cards will likely be affected by price increases. When asked, providers still remain low-key about whether they will pass the costs on to customers.

In addition to additional costs, network users will also benefit from greater network stability in the event of a crisis. Statistically speaking, a power outage occurs every 30 years, according to the federal government. So it’s extremely rare. But the economic damage would be huge: Authorities estimate it at 185 billion francs. With additional insurance, the damage is expected to be reduced by 16 billion francs.

The last few years have shown that serious network failures may occur more frequently. This last one happened at Swisscom in 2021 and 2022. What was particularly serious was that the emergency numbers were also down at the time. (smt)

Source :Blick