Swisscom, Sunrise ink fibre broadband expansion deals
Two of Switzerland's biggest broadband providers have signed deals to expand their fibre footprints.
Swisscom, which has over half of the country's broadband market, announced on Wednesday that it had signed a deal with local ISP GA Weissenstein to rollout fibre to 22,000 premises over the coming years.
The first phase of the agreement will see 11,000 homes and businesses in the town of Solothurn get fibre connectivity by 2015, with 11,000 more in the municipalities Biberist, Zuchwil and Langendorf to follow by the close of 2018.
Swisscom will take care of the first half of the project, while GA Weissenstein, which offers services in and around the Berne area, will manage the latter. The two companies will split the cost of the rollout between them.
Four fibre cables will run to each premises, with users able to choose between competing services from Swisscom, GA Weissenstein or rival providers.
Sunrise, which has around one-fifth of the Swiss broadband market, also announced a fibre deal on Wednesday: the company signed a cooperation agreement with Swiss Fibre Net, a recently-formed joint venture between local power companies.
Under the deal, Sunrise and Swiss Fibre Net will develop fibre services for the Swiss market, the first of which is likely to be a regional infrastructure offering based on FTTH. Sunrise said it work on other fibre products with Swiss Fibre Net, including using fibre to connect up Sunrise' mobile sites, business fibre products, and cooperation on fibre backbone.
Sunrise is planning to put CHF 500m (€404m) into expanding its fibre network over the next two years.