Swisscom announced in its Q2 earnings report that it will continuously invests in the quality, coverage and performance of the network infrastructure, further consolidating its technology leadership.
As at the end of June 2021, Swisscom had connected over 4.6 million or 86% of homes and businesses in Switzerland to its ultra-fast broadband service (speeds in excess of 80 Mbps). Over 3.6 million or 68% of homes and offices benefit from fast connections with bandwidths exceeding 200 Mbps. Of these, more than 1.8 million have been upgraded to FTTH. Swisscom intends to make ultra-fast broadband available in every Swiss municipality by the end of 2021, even in remote locations.
It has also set itself an ambitious expansion target with its aspiration to offer all customers the best network in Switzerland everywhere and at all times. By the end of 2025, FTTH fibre-optic coverage is set to increase to up to 60%.
As at the end of June 2021, Swisscom covered 99% of the Swiss population with its 4G/LTE network. Swisscom currently supplies 98% of the Swiss population with a basic version of 5G. At the end of June 2021, Swisscom had 1,558 antennas in 693 locations with full 5G+.
In order to be able to secure this high network quality, a rapid expansion of the fifth generation of mobile communications is required. 4G was introduced when data usage was 200 times lower and only a third of today’s devices were in use, according to a May 2021 study on mobile data usage by research institute Sotomo. However, mobile network expansion has stalled in many places, and the creation of urgently needed capacity for both 4G and 5G continues to be delayed.
