Berne, 27 April 2012, 10:00

Winterthur Utilities and Swisscom sign partnership agreement on joint expansion of the fibre-optic network

Swisscom 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.

distributed by