Swisscom’s got 5G covered but regulators are spiking its cable ducts over ambitions for national fibre backbone
Christoph Aeschlimann takes over as Swisscom CEO on June 1st from Urs Schaepp, Reuters reports, and his first task will be to clear some blockages in the telco’s backbone. Aeschlimann, currently head of infrastructure, network and IT and a member of the group executive board, has to tackle a major problem according to Light Reading’s analyst Ann Morris.
Meeting minds with the regulators
A genius at configuring systems, this could be his toughest communications challenge yet: meeting the minds of the regulators and working on the same wavelength. Schaeppi warned in October last year last Swisscom’s fibre ducts were being metaphorically spiked by the Swiss Competition Commission (ComCo) and the Federal Administrative Court (FAC). Their problem is Swisscom’s plans for wholesale offers, an ambition which could be thwarted for years.
Regulator blocks fibre
Despite Schaeppi’s communication skills, the idea that the flagship Swiss telco should build and share a high speed communications backbone for the nation “remains difficult” for the regulators. ComCo argues that the proposed expansion risked excluding other participants from the market which could amount to misuse of Swisscom’s market-leading position.
Clarity of purpose needed
“Clarity is needed urgently in the ongoing proceedings with the Competition Commission. The Swiss economy and society are dependent on a future-oriented fibre-optic expansion to drive digitisation forward,” said Schaeppi. Swisscom had connected 4.8 million homes and businesses to its 80Mbps network by January 2022, a 90 per cent inclusion rate. Around 4 million of these premises are served by a 200Mbps connection, thanks to what Swisscom calls a “a combination of fibre-optic technologies.”
Take partnership with Salt
Swisscom currently covers 99 per cent of the Swiss population with a basic version of 5G. Infrastructure supremo Aeschlimann will aim to double Swisscom’s fibre to the home (FTTH) coverage to serve two thirds of the country by Switzerland by 2025. But the target may have to be modified subject to the regulators. In October, the state-controlled former telecoms monopoly trimmed its 2021 sales outlook, citing a review of its fibre-optic partnership with smaller rival Salt and exchange-rate moves.
Swiss revenues could be better
“The original expansion target of creating around 1.5 million fibre-optic connections by 2025 would be reduced by a third,” the operator has said. In 2021, revenue for the Swisscom Group rose by 0.7 per cent year-on-year to €10.59 billon but that growth was attributable to Italian unit Fastweb. In Switzerland, revenue fell by 0.2 per cent to €7.78 billion.