Swisscom Admits – Key Questions and Answers About the Swiss Fiber Dispute

Swisscom is changing the network design of the ultra-fast data lines. The pressure of hundreds of thousands of blocked connections that cannot be used due to a legal dispute has become too great.

How many connections are there?

There are currently almost 400,000 fiber connections that cannot be activated because the Federal Competition Commission (Comco) Swisscom’s fiber expansion ceased in December 2020.

What changes?

Federal antitrust authorities consider Swisscom’s modified network architecture, with only one power line from the switchboard to the culvert, to be anticompetitive.

Weko is pushing for an expansion with a supply line for every household. Only in this way can Swisscom’s competitors offer customers their own internet offer that differs from that of Swisscom and, for example, offer higher surfing speeds than the “Blue Giant”. In addition, every household has a direct line to the telephone exchange and does not have to share the supply line with the neighbors.

However, this type of construction is more expensive than laying a supply line from the telephone exchange to the street shaft in front of the houses.

Swisscom chose the cheaper option for cost reasons and stuck to it for a long time despite the veto of the competition authorities.

But now the pressure has become too great.

What’s next?

The Weko procedure is taking much longer than originally thought, Swisscom boss Christoph Aeschlimann explained to the media on Thursday: And so it was decided to turn things around in the interest of the customers. Because it is not in the interest of customers for Swisscom to install tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of fiber connections every quarter that cannot be used.

The group again mainly builds direct lines from the telephone exchange to households. And with the almost 400,000 connections already built that are blocked, the supply lines are sometimes extended later. Then they can be put back into use.

Of course this will be more expensive because more lines have to be laid and more roads have to be excavated. That’s why Swisscom is cutting back on its expansion goals:

How Long Does Fiber Expansion Take?

In total, only 1.25 to 1.3 million additional fiber connections will be built by the end of 2025, covering 50 to 55 percent of the population.

The Telekom group had so far opened about 1.5 million additional households and shops with the fast lines and wanted to increase the coverage to about 60 percent. By 2030, coverage should be increased by 70 to 80 percent.

The conversion of the blocked nearly 400,000 fiber connections to the new point-to-point construction is taking a long timesaid Aeschlimann. By the end of 2025, only slightly more than half will have been converted. The rest will happen in 2030.

So is the fiberglass dispute off the table?

no

The switch in construction does not mean that the Weko main proceedings over the fiberglass dispute are outdated, says Swisscom boss Aeschlimann: “It is still going on. We remain convinced that multipoint is the right way to build. Because 90 percent of the world is building like this. The procedure is continuing. We are still in talks with Comko for an agreement.”

Weko is also looking for an amicable settlement with Swisscom. “Plan B would be a ban,” says Weko director Patrik Ducrey.

The telecom provider Init7, one of the key players in the fiber dispute with Swisscom, welcomed the turnaround of the “Blue Giant”. However, Init7 now requires full implementation of the custom fiber network design.

sources

(dsc/sda/awp)