Swisscom this week claims to be the first in Europe to commercially launch G.fast service.
After a more than four-year project phase, the new transmission standard will now be applied across Switzerland as part of the regular Fibre to the Street (FTTS) expansion. The technology will allow Swisscom to quickly and cost-effectively provide high transmission speeds to up to 500 Mbps through the use of a higher frequency spectrum on copper cables.
Since September 2016, only G.fast-compatible 16-port hardware has been used for the Switzerland-wide FTTS expansion. With FTTS, fibre-optic cables are laid up to a distance of around 200 metres from the building. We then use the existing copper cable infrastructure for the remaining distance. In 2017, the transmission standard will also be integrated into 48-port hardware as well as into the Fibre to the Building (FTTB) expansion.
In the medium to long term, Swisscom intends to modernize the fixed broadband network in all Swiss municipalities. By doing so, 85% of all Swiss households and businesses will benefit from a bandwidth of at least 100 Mpbs by the end of 2020. In terms of broadband coverage, according to the latest Akamai Report, Switzerland takes the top spots across Europe and worldwide, and is No. 1 in Europe for high bandwidth coverage (>10 Mbps).
