Berne, 27 April 2012, 10:00
Winterthur Utilities and Swisscom sign partnership agreement on joint expansion of the fibre-optic networkSwisscom and Winterthur Utilities will sign a partnership agreement for joint expansion of the fibre-optic network in Winterthur. Over the next few years the partners will connect 95 percent of households and businesses in the city of Winterthur to the high-speed fibre-optic network. Swisscom will invest around CHF 70 million (60 percent of total costs) in the basic connection and Winterthur Utilities the remaining 40 percent. The people of Winterthur will decide on a loan needed to expand the network in the autumn of 2012.
Over the next few years Swisscom and Winterthur Utilities
will connect 51,700 households and businesses in the city
of Winterthur to the fibre-optic network (Fibre to the
Home, FTTH), enabling the people of Winterthur to benefit
from high-speed Internet access and standing them in good
stead for the digital future.
The partnership between Winterthur Utilities and Swisscom
will make it possible to expand and operate the network
cost-effectively by exploiting synergies in the existing
networks of both companies. Swisscom started to expand the
fibre-optic network in Winterthur two years ago and the
cables already in place will be incorporated into the
partnership. This will substantially reduce the amount of
construction work required in Winterthur. Winterthur city
council has applied to the municipal council for a property
loan for the city's share in the fibre-optic network.
The final decision rests with the electorate of the city of
Winterthur.
Network open to all and competition made possible
thanks to multi-fibre model
Four optical fibres will be laid per household and
business. Two will be for Swisscom, the others will be made
available by Winterthur Utilities to various telecoms
service providers. This multi-fibre model ensures
non-discriminatory access to the fibre-optic network in
Winterthur for other providers, making competition possible
and complying with the recommendations of the ComCom
regulatory authority.
Fibre is rolled out to a new household or business in
Switzerland roughly every two minutes. By the end of 2011,
Swisscom and its cooperation partners had connected some
364,000 households and businesses by means of fibre-optic
cables running into the basement. This figure is set to
rise to around a million by the end of 2015 - one-third of
all households. Today, around 10 percent of all Swiss
households are connected.
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